OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 


BY 


ELMER  HEWITT  CAPEN 


PRIVATELY    PRINTED 
1902 


COPYRIGHT,  1902 
BY  E.  H.  CAPEN 


TUFTS    COLLEGE   PRESS 


TO 

MY    PUPILS    AND    OTHER    FRIENDS 

WHO     HAVE     SHOWN    AN     INTEREST    IN    MY    PUBLIC 
WORK    AND    FAVORED    ME    WITH    THEIR 

CONFIDENCE    AND    COUNSEL 

THIS    VOLUME    IS    AFFECTIONATELY    AND 

GRATEFULLY    INSCRIBED 


M123742 


CONTENTS 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS 
JOHN  BOYLE  O'REILLY,  ORATION 
EDWARD  L.  PIERCE,  DINNER 
A.  A.  MINER,  D.D.,  LL.D. 
TRIBUTE  TO  BENJAMIN  K.  Russ 
CONGREGATIONAL  CLUB  ADDRESS 
TRIBUTE  TO  DR.  SAWYER 
TRIBUTE  TO  JOHN  D.  W.  JOY 
ACQUISITION  OF  TERRITORY 
PUBLIC  EDUCATION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS 
WELCOME  TO  JOHN  D.  LONG 
DEAN  I/EONARD 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY 


THE  INAUGURAL,  ADDRESS  AS  PRESIDENT 
OF  TUFTS  COLLEGE,  JUNE  2,  1875 


It  has  been  intimated  in  certain  quarters 
that  I  would  embrace  this  occasion  to  an- 
nounce the  policy  by  which  I  propose  to  be 
governed  in  performing  the  duties  with  which 
I  have  just  now  been  clothed.  If  I  had  a 
policy  which  differed  materially  from  that 
which  has  been  in  successful  operation  here 
since  the  foundations  of  this  College  were 
laid,  this  might  be,  perhaps,  the  fitting  time 
to  set  it  forth.  But  I  am  no  revolutionist  or 
iconoclast,  if  I  were  I  should  not  have  ven- 
tured to  respond  to  the  summons  which  has 
placed  me  in  this  chair.  I  have  supposed 
that  the  honorable  and  reverend  gentlemen 
who  have  seen  fit  to  commit  to  my  keeping 
this  great  and  solemn  trust  have  been  guided 
by  the  conviction  that,  in  some  way,  I  may 
be  instrumental  in  carrying  out  the  wise  in- 
tentions of  the  projectors  and  founders  of  this 
seat  of  learning.  Only  with  this  view  could 
I  have  been  induced  to  relinquish  a  chosen 


V    .'  -OCCASIONAI,   ADDRESSES 


grrjct  .delightful'  field  of  labor,  in  which,  with- 
out vanity  I  trust,  I  may  claim  to  have  met 
with  some  success,  to  walk  in  strange  and 
difficult  paths  and  to  take  up  responsibilities 
which  experience  alone  can  demonstrate  my 
fitness  to  discharge. 

You  will  naturally  expect,  however,  and 
the  occasion  itself  would  seem  to  demand, 
that  I  should  take  up  some  topic  which  has 
a  direct  and  immediate  bearing  on  the  objects 
which  this  institution  and  those  of  a  kindred 
nature  are  seeking  to  accomplish.  Moreover, 
the  air  is  rife  just  now  with  discussions  of 
questions  pertaining  to  education.  The  most 
eminent  thinkers  both  in  this  country  and  in 
Europe,  are  giving  profound  attention  to  this 
subject,  which  is  perhaps  as  vitally  related  as 
any  other  to  the  civilization  and  progress  of 
humanity.  On  either  side  of  the  water 
theories  are  advanced  which  touch  not  only 
the  methods  and  objects,  but  may  I  not  say, 
the  kind  and  quality  of  intellectual  culture. 
If  we  trusted  alone  to  certain  prominent,  but, 
I  believe,  superficial  signs  we  might  conclude 
that  a  revolution  impends  in  relation  to  nearly 
every  kind  of  teaching  both  primary  and 
academic.  It  can  scarcely  l^e,  however,  that 
the  world  is  ready  for  such  sweeping  changes 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  3 

as  many  are  demanding,  and  it  would  seem 
to  be  the  duty  of  thoughtful  persons  to  resist 
with  all  their  might  tendencies  which  are 
heavily  fraught  with  evil.  Especially  does  it 
devolve  upon  those  who  are  called  to  keep 
watch  over  learning  in  her  highest  and  holiest 
retreats  to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  whatever  has  the 
appearance  merely  of  a  popular  clamor,  to 
hold  with  a  tenacious  grasp  whatever  the 
experience  of  ages  has  approved,  and  to  enter 
the  portals  of  the  future  by  those  ancient  and 
established  ways  over  which  the  sages  and 
philosophers  of  every  time  have  successfully 
travelled. 

In  a  country  so  recently  settled  as  our  own, 
with  institutions  so  fresh  and  full  of  youthful 
vigor,  there  cannot  be  much  danger  in  cling- 
ing to  methods  which  have  shown  themselves 
capable  of  the  grandest  results,  in  advancing 
in  a  line  of  development  which  has  already 
furnished  so  many  proofs  of  its  adaptation  to 
the  people  out  of  whose  necessities  it  sprang. 
Indeed  it  is  impossible  to  forget,  standing  as  I 
do  to-day  on  the  threshold  of  a  new  service  in 
the  cause  of  learning,  in  the  midst  of  a  com- 
munity the  most  refined  and  cultivated  of  any 
in  this  land,  a  community  whose  efforts  in 
behalf  of  intellectual  improvement  form  a 


4  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

leading  feature  of  its  history, — it  is  impossible 
to  forget  the  origin  and  progress  of  systematic 
education  on  these  shores.  It  is  impossible 
to  forget  the  existence  of  established  methods 
among  us,  which  according  to  the  unbiased 
judgment  of  accomplished  observers  from 
abroad,  will  bear  favorable  comparison  with 
any  in  the  world .  It  is  impossible  to  forget  the 
traditions  and  customs  of  even  this  youthful 
institution — the  noble  and  eminent  men  who 
have  preceded  me  in  this  office  and  their  able 
and  faithful  coadjutors,  the  dreams  of  those 
who  may  be  said  to  be  the  fathers  of  the 
enterprise,  arM  the  high  hopes  and  fond  antici- 
pations which  still  cluster  around  this  most 
worthy  object  of  a  devout  and  holy  love. 

It  cannot  be  out  of  place,  therefore,  to  con- 
sider as  simply  and  briefly  as  may  be : 

THE    PURPOSE    AND    SCOPE    OF    UNIVERSITY 
TRAINING  IN  AMERICA. 

Nowhere  on  the  face  of  the  earth  has  there 
been  such  anxious  solicitude  displayed  for 
the  higher  forms  of  culture  as  in  America. 
Nowhere  have  there  been  so  many  instrumen- 
talities created  for  the  purpose  of  imparting 
the  noblest  and  most  recondite  parts  of  knowl- 
edge. With  what  pride  every  American,  and 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  5 

especially  every  man  of  New  England  birth, 
reverts  to  the  fact  that  one  of  the  first  acts  of 
the  early  settlers  of  the  Massachusetts  colony 
— before  there  was  anything  like  permanently 
established  government  among  them — was  to 
take  measures  for  the  establishment  of  a 
college.  "Provision  had  hardly  been  made 
for  the  first  wants  of  life,"  says  the  historian, 
' '  habitations,  food,  clothing  and  churches. 
Walls,  roads  and  bridges  were  yet  to  be 
built.  The  power  of  England  stood  in  an 
attitude  to  strike.  A  desperate  war  with  the 
natives  had  already  begun  and  the  govern- 
ment was  threatened  with  an  Antinomian 
insurrection.  Through  and  beyond  these 
dark  complications  of  the  present,  the  New 
England  founders  looked  to  great  necessities 
of  future  times  which  could  not  be  provided 
for  too  soon."  {Palfrey.*)  This  then,  is  the 
key-note  of  at  least  one  of  the  most  important 
strains  in  our  history.  This  is  the  beginning 
of  that  golden  thread  which  runs  through  the 
entire  web  of  our  American  social  life.  The 
schools  of  highest  grade  which  have  followed 
in  such  rapid  and  constant  succession  are  the 
legitimate  offspring  of  that  first  effort  to  plant 
the  seeds  of  a  noble  intellectual  life. 

What  is  the    purpose    of    the    American 


6  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

University  ?  As  we  survey  the  institutions 
scattered  so  thickly  up  and  down  the  land, 
as  we  listen  to  the  music  of  their  chiming 
bells  and  witness  the  pilgrimages  which  the 
youth  of  the  country  are  making  to  their 
shrines,  we  cannot  forbear  the  question, 
what  is  the  idea  that  underlies  them  ?  The 
more  one  contemplates  them,  the  more  he 
is  struck  with  the  marvellous  way  in  which 
their  immediate  ends  have  been  overruled 
so  that  they  have  been  made  to  serve  in 
Platonic  phrase,  though  in  a  sense  higher 
and  broader  than  that  in  which  the  philoso- 
pher himself  used  it,  '  *  the  divine  necessities 
of  knowledge."  The  forming  of  a  learned 
ministry  was  the  object  chiefly  sought  by  the 
first  college,  and  I  suppose  a  like  motive 
prompted  the  establishment  of  the  majority 
of  similar  institutions.  Certainly  this  was  the 
womb  out  of  which  Tufts  was  born.  But  for- 
tunately the  founders  builded  better  than 
they  knew.  The  course  of  study  adopted  at 
Harvard  College  in  the  beginning  was  mod- 
eled after  that  which  was  then  followed  in  the 
English  universities,  and  its  graduates  almost 
immediately  became  distinguished,  not  only 
in  the  new  world,  but  even  in  the  mother 
country,  to  which  some  of  them  returned,  for 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  7 

the  breadth  and  thoroughness  of  their  scholar- 
ship. There  was  something,  therefore,  in  its 
accidental  surroundings,  or  in  the  uncon- 
scious wisdom  of  those  who  created  it,  which 
fitted  the  university  at  once  to  meet  the 
exigencies  of  the  people  among  whom  it  was 
to  be  unfolded  and  whose  destinies  it  was 
itself  to  aid  in  moulding. 

First  of  all  it  proposes  culture, — pure 
and  simple ;  and  this,  too,  for  its  own  sake. 
All  other  objects  are  sunk  from  view.  It  as- 
sumes that  learning  is  the  highest  and  noblest 
of  all  temporal  pursuits,  that  it  is  even  re- 
moved from  the  common  range  of  temporalities 
and  linked  by  a  mysterious  process  to  the 
Ineffable  and  Eternal.  Hence  it  aims  to 
present  learning  in  the  guise  of  a  fair  and 
beautiful  maiden  to  whom  youth  are  invited 
to  pay  their  court  as  to  one  who  will  hold 
sweet  and  delightful  converse  with  them  and 
never  deceive  them  or  lead  them  astray. 
The  beauty  and  chastity  of  Athena  are  hers  ; 
nay,  she  seems  to  say  in  the  language  of 
Scripture  :  "  Get  wisdom,  get  understanding: 
forget  it  not."  No  ulterior  aims  are  suffered 
to  have  play  in  the  blessed  sanctuary  of 
knowledge.  Its  work  must  be  done  in  the 
spirit  of  the  cloister.  The  youth  who  enters 


8  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

into  her  service,  for  the  time,  at  least,  must 
know  no  other  mistress.  He  must  trust  his 
soul  in  her  keeping.  And  then  how  marvel- 
lous are  her  transformations !  It  is  not  her 
aim  simply  to  give  instruction,  to  communi- 
cate facts  and  expound  principles,  but  she 
deals  with  the  very  substance  of  being.  She 
takes  the  callow  youth  and  makes  of  him  a 
stalwart  man.  She  receives  the  rough  boor 
and  returns  him  to  the  world  an  accomplished 
gentleman.  Her  work  is  to  bring  out  in  the 
full  perfection  of  strength  and  beauty,  the 
latent  possibilities  of  human  nature.  All  the 
powers  of  man  are  given  into  her  charge,  the 
bodily  not  less  than  the  mental.  In  this  re- 
spect, I  remark  just  here,  modern  university 
training  is  returning  happily  to  the  most  an- 
cient methods.  Certainly  a  system  of  culture 
which  aims  to  present  a  whole  man  cannot 
afford  to  neglect  the  "  human  form  divine." 
Gymnastics  which  held  so  prominent  a  place 
in  the  matchless  system  of  Athens,  are  indis- 
pensable in  what  Milton  would  call  a  ' '  com- 
plete and  generous  education  which  fits  a  man 
to  perform  justly,  skilfully  and  magnanimously 
all  the  offices  both  private  and  public  of  peace 
and  war. ' '  But  the  business  of  the  university 
is  primarily  with  the  mental  powers,  to  sharpen 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  9 

and  strengthen  them ;  to  give  breadth  and 
solidity  to  the  understanding  ;  to  quicken  the 
perceptions ;  to  inflame  and  exalt  and  steady 
the  imagination ;  to  refine  the  fancy,  so  that 
there  may  be  not  only  clearness  and  scope  of 
intellectual  vision,  power  of  carrying  forward 
high  and  connected  trains  of  thought,  ability 
to  observe  and  compare  the  facts  and  phe- 
nomena of  nature,  to  solve  the  abstruse  prob- 
lems of  mathematics,  to  analyze  and  construct, 
to  make  just  discriminations  and  accurate 
generalizations,  but  an  appreciation  of  the 
beautiful  in  art  and,  above  all,  a  relish  for 
whatever  is  most  choice  and  rare  in  the  litera- 
ture of  humanity. 

I  go  further  and  declare  that  a  school 
which  would  meet  the  highest  wants  of  man 
must  not  neglect  the  feelings.  The  human 
mind  is  a  very  complex  instrument,  and 
notwithstanding  the  contempt  with  which  cer- 
tain materialistic  philosophers  speak  of  them, 
the  sentiments,  the  affections,  the  emotions, 
constitute  when  joined  with  sound  reason,  the 
noblest  part  of  our  nature.  In  our  own  College 
we  would  not  overlook  this  fact.  We  would 
teach  universality.  That  is  no  better  than  a 
school  of  technology  which  does  not  draw  the 
mind  of  the  pupil  away  from  the  narrow  chan- 


IO  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSKS 

nel  of  thought  and  action  in  which  his  bread  is 
to  be  earned  and  lead  him  to  contemplate  the 
whole  realm  of  God ;  which  does  not  arouse  his 
sympathies,  stimulate  his  generosity  and  show 
him  how  he  is  related  to  all  ages,  to  all  races, 
and  even  to  all  the  facts  and  principles  of  being. 
He  only  is  thoroughly  furnished  for  the  stern 
necessities  of  life  who  has  tenacity  of  will, 
sensitiveness  of  conscience  and  high  moral 
purpose.  The  university  rightly  administered 
will  not  fail  to  develop  these  qualities.  She 
will  so  deal  with  the  tender  wards  committed 
to  her  care  that  not  only  will  they  be  con- 
scious of  their  membership  of  the  great  body 
of  humanity,  but  self-centered  and  self-con- 
tained ;  she  will  give  them  resources,  render 
them  strong  in  the  might  of  their  own  man- 
hood, enabling  them  to  exhibit  in  their  inter- 
course with  the  world  the  lofty  equipoise  of 
spirit,  which  Cicero  ascribed  to  Cato.  Dicit 
tanquam  in  Platonis  iroAtret?,  non  tanquam  in 
Romulifcece,  sententiam. 

If  it  is  objected  that  this  is  putting  the 
university  too  far  away  from  the  conscious 
needs  of  the  public  on  which  it  depends  for 
patronage,  I  reply  that  it  is  its  duty  to  lead. 
Its  function  is  to  open  a  path  through  the 
tangled  wilderness  of  knowledge.  Until  it 


INAUGURAI,   ADDRESS  II 

has  done  this  it  has  no  right  to  expect  a 
following.  For  one  I  believe  thoroughly  in 
Dr.  Newman's  doctrine  of  demand  and  sup- 
ply in  relation  to  education — that  the  supply 
must  necessarily  precede  the  demand .  W  hile 
it  furnishes  the  food  which  the  mind  needs, — 
the  only  food  which  can  perfectly  satisfy, — it 
is  also  charged  with  the  duty  of  creating  an 
appetite  for  it.  The  way  to  receive  and  relish 
it  is  an  art  in  itself.  Thus  it  will  often  hap- 
pen that  a  community  may  have  a  vague 
sense  of  the  value  of  education  in  the  abstract, 
it  may  even  make  large  sacrifices  to  promote 
it,  and  yet  be  lamentably  ignorant  of  the 
steps  which  individuals  must  take  to  avail 
themselves  of  it.  But  the  need  is  in  the  hu- 
man soul,  and  if  the  instrumentality  which  is 
called  forth  by  it  performs  its  duty  faithfully, 
the  hunger  for  knowledge  will  at  length  be 
aroused  with  overmastering,  irrepressible 
force.  I  say  this  by  way  of  comforting  those 
who  may  think  Tufts  College  has  received 
something  less  of  patronage  than  it  should 
have  had,  considering  the  number  of  its  mate- 
rial favors  and  the  enthusiasm  it  has  awakened. 
But  let  us  be  patient.  Already  we  have 
accomplished  much.  In  a  little  while  she 
will  have  a  multitude  of  noble  sons,  jealous 


12  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

of  her  fame,  who  will  rejoice  to  lay  their 
laurel  wreaths  at  her  feet ;  and  then  the  ar- 
dent youths  from  every  quarter  will  come 
flocking  to  her  halls,  like  bees  to  Hymettus, 
to  taste  the  sweets  which  she  has  in  store  for 
them.  Meanwhile  we  must  be  true  to  our 
purpose.  We  must  continue  to  proclaim  our 
ideal  and  summon  the  people  to  its  standard. 
Any  abatement  of  it  will  be  fatal.  The  exi- 
gencies of  our  situation  compel  us  to  seek  the 
loftiest  summits  of  intellectual  attainment. 
Placed  as  it  were  in  immediate  contact  with 
the  most  venerable,  the  most  famous,  the 
most  complete  and  successful  University  on 
this  continent,  so  that  our  students  may  com- 
pare notes  with  hers  at  every  step  of  their 
progress,  and  so  that  our  graduates  are 
brought  into  sharp  competition  with  hers, 
wherever  they  chance  to  take  up  the  active 
duties  of  life,  we  cannot  afford  to  be  second 
rate  or  commonplace  in  anything.  Nor 
should  we  yield  to  the  temptation  before 
which  so  many  institutions  are  already 
bending  to  debase  the  standard  of  college 
work  to  the  level  of  a  popular  demand.  We 
must  gird  our  loins  and  push  on  in  the  ' '  path 
of  a  virtuous  and  noble  education  ;  laborious 
indeed  at  the  first  ascent,  but  else  so  smooth, 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  13 

so  green,  so  full  of  goodly  prospect,  and  melo- 
dious sounds  on  every  side,  that  the  harp  of 
Orpheus  was  not  more  charming." 

Above  all,  the  university  must  exhibit 
a  supreme  and  unwavering  loyalty  to  truth. 
Wherever  she  finds  it  she  must  embrace  it. 
Her  faith  in  the  integrity  of  knowledge  must 
be  irrefragable, — that  the  universe  is  one, 
and  that  all  its  parts  are  only  so  many  vary- 
ing but  harmonious  expressions  of  the  mind 
of  God.  Especially  is  it  the  duty  of  a  school, 
springing  as  this  does,  out  of  a  universal 
interpretation  of  the  divine  economy,  to  teach 
that  there  is  a  perfect  relation  and  kinship — 
whether  we  are  able  to  detect  it  not — exist- 
ing between  all  facts,  all  phenomena,  all  prin- 
ciples of  being  ;  and  that  therefore  true  phil- 
osophy is  not  at  variance  with  itself,  genuine 
science  is  not  self  destructive  ;  that,  for  exam- 
ple, no  law  or  principle  can  be  true  in  physics 
which  is  not  equally  true,  or  which,  at  least,  is 
proved  to  be  false,  in  metaphysics  ;  that  no 
maxim  of  political  economy  can  be  sound 
or  just  which  is  subversive  of  a  clear  rule 
of  ethics ;  that,  however  it  may  be  with 
legislation,  jurisprudence,  "  that  law  which," 
as  Hooper  says,  "  hath  been  of  God  and  with 
God  everlastingly,"  must  coincide  with  good 


14  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

morals.  This  is  the  principle,  doubtless, 
which  Plato  dimly  recognized  when  in  his 
ideal  state,  he  made  music  so  important  a 
factor  of  education.  ' '  Is  not  this  the  reason, ' ' 
he  asks  ' '  why  musical  training  is  so  power- 
ful, because  rhythm  and  harmony  find  their 
way  into  the  secret  places  of  the  soul,  on 
which  they  mightily  fasten,  bearing  grace  in 
their  movements,  and  making  the  soul  grace- 
ful of  him  who  is  rightly  educated,  or  un- 
graceful if  ill  educated  ;  and  also  because  he 
who  has  received  this  true  education  of  the 
inner  being  will  most  shrewdly  perceive  omis- 
sions or  faults  in  art  and  nature,  and  with  a 
true  taste,  while  he  praises  and  rejoices  over, 
and  receives  into  his  soul  the  good,  and  be- 
comes noble  and  good,  he  will  justly  blame 
and  hate  the  bad."  If  only  this  principle 
could  have  had  a  distinct  and  conscious  oper- 
ation in  all  the  teachings  of  Christendom 
how  much  misery  might  have  h>een  averted  ! 
The  doctrine  of  Rousseau  and  his  followers 
— that  men  have  rights  which  transcend, 
and  are  not  reciprocated  by  their  obliga- 
tions— would  have  been  robbed  of  its  power 
to  sting ;  and  the  wretched  conclusions  of 
materialistic  philosophy  so  insulting  to  the 
dignity  of  human  nature,  so  contradictory  to 


INAUGURAly   ADDRESS  15 

the  lessons  of  human  experience,  so  danger- 
ous to  the  very  foundations  of  civil  society, 
would  meet  with  the  contempt  which  they 
deserve. 

What  is  the  range  of  work  in  a  University  ? 
How  much,  and  in  what  way  may  it  teach  ? 
Well,  I  answer  both  of  these  questions  at 
once  by  saying,  it  should  teach  everything 
that  is  capable  of  being  taught  in  a  philo- 
sophic spirit.  Its  very  name  implies  the  scope 
of  its  obligations  to  learning.  It  is  a  univer- 
sity, studium  generate.  It  cannot  shut  out 
from  its  domain  a  single  province  of  knowl- 
edge and  still  pretend  to  teach,  as  its  name 
implies,  de  omni  scibili.  Nobody  of  course 
will  understand  me  as  affirming  that  it  should 
undertake  to  teach  everything  at  once  to  the 
same  pupil,  or  that  it  should  attempt  to  em- 
brace even  the  elements  of  every  branch  of 
study  in  its  curriculum.  An  effort  so  absurd 
and  foolish  would  only  end  in  shallowness  and 
superficiality.  But  it  should  have  the  means 
of  satisfying  the  thirsty  student  who  comes  to 
drink  at  its  fountains,  no  matter  how  deep 
and  singular  his  desire  may  be.  It  is  just  in 
this  respect  that  the  universities  of  Europe 
present  such  a  marked  advantage  over  any- 
thing that  is  commonly  to  be  found  here. 


1 6  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

The  gray  haired  scholar,  who  has  spent  the 
studious  intervals  of  a  long  life  in  a  special 
line  of  research,  goes  to  one  of  those  great 
intellectual  centers  to  perfect  himself  in  his 
chosen  pursuit,  and  there  he  finds,  not  only 
the  implements  ready  to  his  hands,  but 
somebody  trained  and  specially  appointed  to 
direct  him  in  their  use. 

Perhaps  I  have  already  sufficiently  answered 
the  question  whether  the  studies  of  the  uni- 
versity should  be  practical.  I  think  it  was 
Schelling  who  taught,  in  substance,  that  the 
ideal  alone  gives  interest  to  the  practical. 
"Art  and  nature,"  he  tells  us  "  are  prod- 
ucts of  the  same  intelligence  ;  whenever  they 
meet  unconsciously  they  form  the  real  world  ; 
whenever  they  meet  consciously  they  form 
the  ideal  world."  For  myself  I  say,  very 
frankly,  that  if  you  mean  by  the  practical 
merely  the  technical,  that  which  renders 
learning  useful  simply  as  a  trade,  I  would 
not  have  that  element  enter  into  the  course 
of  study.  If  you  desire  simply  riches  for 
your  sons,  if  your  sole  aim  is  to  put  them  in 
a  way  to  make  money,  if  the  mercenary  mo- 
tive rules  wholly,  then  the  university  is  not 
the  place  for  them.  But  if  you  wish  to  give 
them  what  is  ' '  better  than  rubies, ' '  what  not 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  17 

even  princely  wealth  can  command,  what 
commercial  convulsions  can  neither  tarnish 
nor  destroy,  what  will  be  a  perpetual  joy  to 
them  in  prosperity  and  an  unfailing  solace  in 
adversity,  they  can  find  it  by  seeking  dili- 
gently in  these  halls.  Let  them  come  as 
Hippocrates  went  to  Protagoras,  ready  to  lay 
his  fortune  at  his  feet,  not  to  be  made  a  soph- 
ist, but  that  he  might  acquire  the  art,  ' '  as  a 
part  of  education,  "  and  possess  the  wisdom 
of  his  master. 

But  it  may  be  objected  that  anything  so 
visionary,  so  far  removed  from  the  hard  re- 
alities of  life,  is  poor  stuff  to  furnish  young 
men  with,  who,  after  all  must  make  a  liveli- 
hood and  get  on  in  life ;  and  I  reply,  that  on 
actual  trial  it  will  be  found  that  men  thus 
furnished  are  the  most  practical  of  all.  For 
in  the  highest  and  best  sense,  the  ideal  and 
the  practical  coincide.  The  ideal  is  the 
eternal,  and  whatever  is  eternal,  unchang- 
able,  indestructible,  fits  a  man  to  meet  all  ex- 
igencies and  rise  superior  to  circumstances. 
You  may  talk  of  those  who  are  thus  trained 
as  abstractionists,  idealists,  dreamers,  but  it 
is  they  who  give  law  to  the  world.  Without 
their  presence  human  society  would  be  as  des- 
olate and  dreary  as  the  burning  sands  of 


1 8  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

Central  Africa  or  the  glistening  glaciers  of 
Greenland.  They  sit  in  our  halls  of  legisla- 
tion. They  fill  our  editorial  chairs.  They 
administer  justice  in  our  courts  of  law- 
They  preside  in  our  school-rooms.  They 
stand  by  the  bedsides  of  our  sick  and  dying. 
They  carry  the  gospel  of  peace  and  comfort  to 
a  distracted  and  sorrowing  world.  Yes,  it  is 
they  who  explore  continents,  measure  moun- 
tains and  rivers,  dredge  the  bottom  of  the  sea, 
analyze  and  weigh  the  sunbeams,  watch  the 
movements  and  oscillations  of  the  stars,  and 
peer  into  the  depths  of  microscopic  wonder. 
It  is  they,  too,  who,  regulate  social  customs, 
prescribe  the  conventionalisms  of  men,  estab- 
lish precedents,  watch  over  the  traditions  of 
the  past,  and  open  the  pearly  gates  of  the 
future. 

Who  shall  say  then,  that  studies  bearing 
such  fruit,  which  are  transmuted  thus  into 
character  of  the  loftiest  and  noblest  type,  are 
only  visionary  ? 

It  is  unnecessary  that  I  should  specify  par- 
ticular branches.  The  course  of  study  already 
prescribed  here  and  so  ably  expounded  and 
applied  by  these  learned  gentlemen,  some  of 
whom  were  formerly  my  teachers,  and  who  are 
now  to  be  my  associates,  is  its  own  vindication. 


INAUGURAIy  ADDRESS  19 

I  would  not  have  it  curtailed  in  any  of  its  de- 
partments, but  on  the  contrary  I  would  have  it 
expanded  and  enlarged  in  all.  It  is  a  matter 
of  deep  satisfaction,  that,  through  the  noble 
benefactions  of  Dr.  Walker,  the  study  of  math- 
ematics is  placed  on  a  sound  and  durable 
basis  with  such  ample  possibilities  for  future 
development.  When  we  think  of  the  power 
which  this  study  has  in  arousing  the  faculties, 
in  giving  intensity  and  continuity  and  pre- 
cision to  the  thoughts  —  especially  when  we 
think  of  the  great  examples  of  its  power;  of 
Alexander  Hamilton,  for  instance,  in  intervals 
of  gigantic  labor,  refreshing  and  strengthen- 
ing his  mind  for  the  task  of  bringing  order  out 
of  financial  chaos  and  creating  anew  the  credit 
of  a  nation,  with  a  cup  of  coffee  and  the  propo- 
sitions of  Euclid;  of  Lincoln  preparing  him- 
self by  the  same  process  to  guide  the  Republic 
through  the  awful  tempest  of  civil  strife,  we 
cannot  be  too  thankful  that  it  is  here,  and  that 
it  is  here  on  such  broad  and  permanent  founda- 
tions. 

In  behalf  of  all  learning,  whose  servant  I  am , 
I  rejoice  in  the  large  space  which  the  phys- 
ical sciences  have  already  come  to  fill  here. 
I  rejoice  on  abstract  ground.  But  I  rejoice 
especially  in  view  of  the  increased  importance 


20  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

which  men  are  attaching  just  now  to  these  and 
kindred  branches  of  knowledge,  and  it  would 
afford  me  unspeakable  gratification  if  I  might 
live  to  see  the  work  performed  in  this  depart- 
ment, alone,  excelled  by  no  school  in  the  world. 
I  would  like  to  see  history,  which  was  taught 
in  the  beginning  by  Dr.  Ballou  with  such  en- 
thusiasm, such  accuracy,  such  profound  pen- 
etration restored  to  something  of  its  old-time 
importance.  Remembering,  too,  the  noble 
declaration  of  Burke  that  the  study  of  law  in  the 
American  colleges  made  them  u  augur  mis- 
government  at  a  distance;  and  snuff  the 
approach  of  tyranny  in  every  tainted  breeze, ' ' 
I  would  supplement  the  work  which  is  done 
now  so  effectively  in  metaphysical  and  ethical 
studies  with  jurisprudence  —  at  least,  so  far 
as  it  relates  to  the  Roman  Civil  L,aw,  and  to 
the  law  of  nature  and  of  nations. 

But  I  desire  to  say  a  word  in  passing  of  a 
branch  of  learning  which  is  coming  to  be 
much  disparaged  in  our  time,  so  that  it  is  in 
danger,  almost,  of  being  dropped  from  the  list 
of  university  studies  altogether,  or  put  simply 
upon  the  elective  roll.  I  mean  the  classic 
languages  of  Greece  and  Rome.  And  I  speak 
of  them  not  because  of  any  personal  fondness 
for,  or  efficiency  in  them;  for  I  am  only  too 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  21 

painfully  conscious  of  the  imperfect  and  super- 
ficial way  in  which  I  have  studied  them .  More- 
over, lest  this  confession  should  seem  to  bear 
with  undue  severity  upon  my  Alma  Mater, 
let  me  add,  that  what  seems  to  be  my  own 
deficiency  in  this  respect  corresponds  very 
nearly  with  what  is  felt  by  all  American 
graduates  with  whom  it  has  been  my  privi- 
lege to  compare  notes.  It  is  the  one  depart- 
ment, I  believe  in  which  American  university 
training  is  the  most  defective.  Yet  some 
would  banish  them  altogether  as  dry  and  worth- 
less rubbish,  wearisome  to  the  flesh  and  profit- 
less to  the  mind  of  the  student.  No  doubt 
there  is  a  way  of  teaching  them,  and  I  am 
afraid  that  way  prevails  in  too  many  instan- 
ces, so  that  they  may  become  to  the  pupil,  to 
use  a  homely  but  expressive  phrase  of  Milton, 
an  ' '  asinine  feast  of  sow  -  thistles  and  bram- 
bles." But  there  is  away  of  relieving  them 
of  all  their  dullness  and  drudgery  and 
making  them  among  the  most  delightful 
pursuits  of  man.  So  far  from  having  less  of 
them  we  should  have  more  of  them,  and  they 
should  be  more  extensively  and  generally  cul- 
tivated. There  is  no  reason  why  they  should 
not  be  in  the  common  schools  as  well  as  English 
grammar  and  arithmetic;  and  they  might  well 


22  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

be  there  before  either  of  them.  A  boy  may 
get  befogged  in  attempting  to  construe  the 
simplest  sentence  of  his  own  language  who 
can  learn  I^atin  without  difficulty,  and  in 
learning  that  he  acquires,  not  only  the  essential 
principles  of  his  own,  but  of  all  Aryan  tongues . 
In  Germany  a  boy  is  put  into  L,atin  as  soon  as 
he  has  mastered  reading  and  writing,  and  the 
study  of  Greek  follows  in  a  year  or  two. 
When  he  comes  to  the  university  he  passes  out 
from  the  hands  of  the  drill-master.  He  can 
then  read  Plato  in  his  own  tongue  without 
assistance,  can  attend  lectures  delivered  in  the 
sonorous  language  of  Cicero  and  compose 
theses  in  the  same  tongue  after  the  exalted 
model  of  that  great  master.  But  in  America 
even  the  university  graduate  who  could  do  that 
would  be  thought  almost  a  prodigy  of  learning; 
yet  nothing  less  than  that  is  absolutely  indis- 
pensable to  profound  and  wide  scholarship. 

I  need  not  reiterate  the  arguments  which 
have  been  so  often  urged  by  the  most  eminent 
educators  of  modern  times  in  behalf  of  classical 
studies.  I  would  only  call  attention  inciden- 
tally to  their  scientific  value;  their  value,  I 
mean,  as  related  to  the  whole  domain  of  human 
speech.  For  this  should  be  the  aim,  as  Bunsen 
has  justly  observed,  of  all  linguistic  study,  to 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  23 

"find  out  the  analogies  of  languages  and  de- 
duce consequences  from  them."  Indeed, 
there  is  no  science  in  our  day  which,  according 
to  my  thinking,  promises  such  large  results 
to  the  historian,  the  antiquarian,  the  archae- 
ologist, the  student  of  ethnology,  to  historical 
jurisprudence,  to  social  ethics,  to  metaphysics, 
aye,  even  to  theology  itself,  as  linguistics. 
For  the  clear  and  unequivocal  testimony  of 
language  upon  any  of  these  subjects  is  abso- 
lutely irrefutable .  Moreover,  the  two  branches 
of  classical  study,  Latin  and  Greek,  together 
with  the  Sanscrit,  are  the  keys  to  the  most 
important  family  of  human  tongues.  I  believe 
therefore,  that  the  true  university  should  have, 
in  addition  to  those  teachers  whose  especial 
business  it  is  to  give  the  requisite  classical 
drill  at  least  one  chair  or  lectureship  devoted 
to  comparative  philology. 

But  you  will  say  I  am  talking  all  the  while 
of  a  university,  when  this  is  only  a  college. 
To  be  sure  we  have  given  it  in  our  modesty 
that  name.  But  it  is  limited  only  in  name. 
Its  chartered  rights  and  therefore  its  possi- 
bilities in  the  realm  of  intellectual  culture  are 
as  broad  as  the  boundaries  of  knowledge.  I 
have  already  intimated  how  by  the  very  nec- 
essities of  its  situation  it  cannot  afford  to  hold  a 


24  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

subordinate  place.  Besides,  if  we  Have  not 
reached  perfection  we  can,  at  least,  aim  at  it, 
and  we  will  spare  no  effort  to  hit  the  mark. 

There  is  one  important  respect  in  which 
the  American  university  is  somewhat  pecu- 
liar ;  that  is,  in  the  establishment  of  schools 
for  professional  training  under  the  same  board 
of  government  as  the  college.  In  the  Divin- 
ity School,  called  into  being  under  the  effec- 
tive administration  of  my  predecessor,  and 
which  is  already  giving  abundant  signs  of  a 
vigorous  and  healthy  life,  a  long  step  has 
been  taken  towards  vindicating  the  claims 
we  shall  one  day  make  in  the  republic  of  let- 
ters. The  enlarged  facilities  which  have  also 
been  instituted  for  scientific  instruction  and 
research  is  likewise  a  hopeful  sign  in  the 
same  direction.  I  trust  that  ere  long  we  shall 
rejoice  in  the  establishment  of  a  separate 
school  of  science,  whose  course  of  study  will 
be  regarded  not  a  substitute  for,  nor  a  parallel 
with,  but  as  a  supplement  of  collegiate  train- 
ing. The  other  professional  schools  are  yet 
to  come.  But  they  are  coming,  and  I  de- 
voutly pray  that  somehow,  through  the  provi- 
dence of  God,  my  hands  may  assist  in  placing 
their  basal  stones. 

Moreover,  the  principle,  I   am  sure,  is  a 


IN  AUGUR  AI,   ADDRESS  25 

just  one,  of  bringing  together  in  one  spot  as 
many  colleges  as  possible.  They  act  and  re- 
act upon  one  another.  Especially  does  the 
college  proper  exert  an  elevating  and  inspir- 
ing influence  upon  the  professional  school. 
It  awakens  within  it  the  philosophic  spirit, 
takes  away  in  a  measure  the  commercial  and 
grovelling  desires  which  are  too  apt  to  en- 
gross its  members,  and  leads  them  to  regard 
their  vocations  not  as  temporary  make- shifts 
by  which  they  are  to  escape  the  drudgery  of 
manual  labor  and  keep  themselves  and  their 
families  from  want,  but  as  noble  avenues 
through  which  they  are  to  seize  the  truth 
and  apply  it  to  the  necessities  of  men.  It  is 
the  college  that  imparts  a  divine  halo  to  the 
professions  and  enables  them  to  be  classed 
not  as  trades,  but  as  liberal  arts.  Logically, 
therefore,  the  college  precedes  the  profess- 
ional school.  "  If  any  man,"  says  Bacon, 
' '  think  philosophy  and  universality  to  be 
idle  studies,  he  doth  not  consider  that  all  pro- 
fessions are  from  thence  served  and  supplied. 
And  this  I  take  to  be  the  great  cause  that 
hath  hindered  the  progression  of  learning,  be- 
cause these  fundamental  knowledges  have 
been  studied  but  in  passage."  So  far  from 
exerting  a  secularizing  influence  even  upon 


26  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

students  of  divinity,  as  some  have  feared,  the 
effect  of  the  college  is  to  awaken  a  sublime 
and  holy  ideal,  and  call  forth  an  unshrinking 
purpose  in  its  pursuit. 

Such,  then,  is  the  range  of  the  work  which 
the  university  is  called  to  undertake,  and 
such  the  spirit  in  which  it  must  be  performed. 

What  agencies  will  best  secure  the  ends  of 
the  university?  How  also  may  the  instrumen- 
talities to  which  it  has  given  rise  reach  their 
highest  efficiency  ? 

All  writers  who  have  given  profound 
attention  to  the  subject,  agree  in  attaching 
great  importance  to  situation.  It  must  be 
in  a  fair  spot  to  which  both  nature,  and  art 
have  lent  their  charms.  It  must  be  retired, 
away  from  the  bustle  and  confusion  of  the 
great  world  where  the  mind  may  freely  give 
itself  to  undisturbed  reflections.  Yet  it  must 
be  near  some  centre  of  life  and  trade,  and  es- 
pecially does  it  need  to  feel  the  power  of  a 
higher  intellectual  life  surging  around  it  and 
ever  lifting  it  to  nobler  and  grander  attain- 
ments. The  image  of  Athens,  which,  for 
more  than  a  thousand  years,  was  the  intellect- 
ual mistress  of  the  civilized  world,  whose 
immortal  teachers 

"Still  rule  our  spirits  from  their  urns," 


INAUGURAL  ADDRKSS  27 

rises  before  us  in  all  her  loveliness  and  beauty. 
We  think  how  she  by  her  matchless  climate, 
which  fostered  poetic  dreams  and  made  life 
seem  like  one  long  midsummer's  day  ;  by  her 
indescribable  atmosphere,  which  gave  to  the 
cold  marbles  of  Praxiteles  the  richness  and 
warmth  almost  of  Titian's  coloring,  and  re- 
lieved the  severe  angles  of  her  temples  so 
that  they  seemed  to  be  filled  with  a  depth 
and  softness  of  feeling  unsurpassed  by  the 
most  ornate  of  mediaeval  cathedrals  ;  by  her 
contiguity  to  the  sea  and  her  relations  to  the 
mysterious  Bast;  by  her  commercial  impor- 
tance ;  by  her  marvellous  language,  softer 
and  sweeter  and  more  flexible  and  of  wider 
compass  than  the  tones  of  an  organ ;  by  her 
free  institutions  and  public  spirit;  by  her 
great  men ;  by  her  inspiring  traditions  and 
her  wonderful  mythology,  was  fitted  to  be  the 
university  of  all  nations.  We  think  also  of 
the  grand  facilities  she  had  within  herself  for 
noble  schools  ;  of  her  groves  which  Cimon 
planted ;  of  her  beautiful  public  buildings 
which  Pericles  erected  and  Phidias  adorned  ; 
of  her  porticoes,  surrounding  the  Agora,  filled 
with  superb  paintings  and  delicious  sculp- 
tures. We  think  of  her  sweet  poets  and 
eloquent  orators  whose  inspiring  words  thrill 


28  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

and  sway  our  hearts  to-day  as  they  thrilled 
and  swayed  the  living  multitudes  to  whom 
they  were  addressed.  But  above  all  we  think 
of  her  great  philosophers,  to  whom  even 
kings  came  for  instruction,  and  who  were 
surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  youths  out  of 
every  nation  under  heaven.  We  seem  to  see 
them  in  their  chosen  retreats  just  outside  the 
din  of  the  great  city,  yet  where  they  could 
hear  the  drowsy  murmur  of  its  bustle  and 
traffic,  directing,  by  the  compass  of  their 
learning,  the  fascinations  of  their  culture  and 
the  force  of  their  enthusiasm,  the  minds  of 
their  hearers  to  the  most  sublime  contem- 
plations. Those  were  conditions  in  which 
both  nature  and  art  combined  to  produce  a 
degree  of  intellectual  refinement  without  a 
rival  either  in  ancient  or  modern  times. 

But  wherever,  in  any  age,  similiar  results 
have  been  achieved  it  has  been  under  a  com- 
bination of  like  advantages.  I  will  not  pause 
now  to  cite  instances.  I  need  only  point  you 
to  our  own  fortunate  position.  The  New 
World  herself  does  not  embrace  a  lovelier 
spot  than  this.  On  whichever  side  the  eye 
turns,  it  commands  a  fairer  prospect  than 
that  which  inflamed  the  heart  of  L,ot  when  he 
beheld  all  the  plain  of  Jordan  fertile  and 


IN  AUGUR  A!,  ADDRESS  29 

well  watered  everywhere.  It  is  in  close  con- 
tact, too,  with  a  great  commercial  metropo- 
lis— a  grand  city  which  presents  many  aspects 
of  resemblance  to  ancient  Athens,  not  the 
least  of  which  is  her  intense  intellectual  ac- 
tivity, and  her  schools  and  teachers  whose 
renown  is  coextensive  with  civilization. 

Just  here,  then,  is  the  place  for  a  great 
college,  however  modestly  it  may  assert  its 
claims  in  the  beginning,  to  grow  up  and 
flourish.  Surely  it  does  not  require  any  very 
painful  stretch  of  the  faculties  to  see,  in  a 
future  not  greatly  remote,  this  hill  crowned 
with  noble  architecture,  peeping  out  from 
amid  embowering  trees,  and  to  hear  the 
thronging  footsteps  of  youths,  coming  from 
the  East  and  from  the  West,  from  the  North 
and  from  the  South,  to  enjoy  the  sweet  repose 
of  its  quiet  shades,  and  to  feel  the  kindling 
impulse  of  its  mental  life. 

It  is  impossible  to  overestimate  the  value 
of  living  teachers  in  a  university.  The  ques- 
tion might  arise  in  some  minds,  what  is 
the  use  of  such  an  array  of  professors  in  one 
school  ?  Why  not  place  the  young  gentle- 
men in  an  intellectual  city,  like  Boston,  with 
its  museums  and  lectureships  and  libraries, 
and  let  them  choose  their  own  instruments 


30  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

of  instruction  ?  Because  there  is  something 
in  the  personal  contact  with  living  men,  which 
institutions  alone,  though  they  be  the  best  ap- 
pointed that  a  beneficent  public  has  ever  de- 
vised, cannot  supply.  It  is  a  blessed  thing 
that  a  man  fresh  from  his  home,  with  all 
the  impulsiveness  and  enthusiasm  and  ardor 
of  youth,  about  to  enter  the  sanctuary  of  a 
new  science,  which  is  to  him  terra  incognita , 
may  be  met  at  the  threshold  by  one  who  has 
spent  long  years  in  studying  and  exploring 
that  same  science,  who  takes  him  by  the  hand 
and  welcomes  him  to  the  delightful  pursuit. 
The  pupil  sees,  as  it  were,  in  the  mind  of  his 
master, — though  the  master  has  been  a  long 
time  in  acquiring  it, — the  science  which  he 
wishes  .to  know,  as  a  concrete,  present,  living 
reality.  He  beholds  it  there  in  all  the  fulness 
and  beauty  of  perfection  ;  and  it  comes  to  him, 
not  by  degrees,  not  by  slow  and  painful  pro- 
cesses, as  he  would  be  compelled  to  learn  it 
from  books,  but  it  bursts  upon  him  like  a  rev- 
elation from  the  skies,  and  excites  in  his  breast 
that  heavenly  glow,  which,  if  he  has  once  felt 
it  raises  him  forever  above  the  sordid  drudgery 
of  the  world.  Of  such  teachers  there  cannot 
be  too  many ;  and  they  should  be  taken  not 
from  one  school,  nor  one  state,  nor  even  from 


INAUGURAL  ADDRKSS  31 

one  race.  They  should  be  gathered  from 
every  nation  that  has  any  worthy  knowledge 
to  supply,  so  that  the  pupils  who  assemble 
from  different  quarters  of  the  globe,  may, 
like  the  multitudes  who  listened  to  the 
Apostles  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  every  man 
hear  in  his  own  language  ;  and  so  that  there 
may  be  given  to  each  tongues  and  the  inter- 
pretation of  tongues. 

But  a  university  accomplishes  its  work  also 
through  dead  teachers  It  is  a  part  of  its  duty 
to  set  the  pupil  face  to  face  with  all  the  wise  and 
all  the  good  of  every  age  and  every  race.  To 
this  end  it  must  have  books,  books,  books — 
not  simply  a  limited  collection  of  them,  how- 
ever well  selected,  but  in  boundless  profusion. 
All  the  literature  of  all  the  world  must  be  at 
the  immediate  command  of  him  who  wants  it, 
whether  for  the  facts  which  it  records,  or  for 
mental  refreshment.  ' '  Libraries  which  are, ' ' 
as  Bacon  said,  "the  shrines  where  all  the 
relics  of  the  ancient  saints,  full  of  true  virtue, 
and  that  without  delusion  or  imposture,  are 
preserved  and  reposed,"  are  the  first  and  last 
necessity  of  a  university.  They  are  needful 
not  only  to  the  learned  professor  and  the  un- 
dergraduate, but  to  that  cultivated  community 
— which  it  is  so  essential  that  a  repository  of 


32  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

knowledge  should  gather  around  itself — com- 
posed of  men  of  elegant  and  refined  leisure, 
of  men  who  are  engaged  in  historical  or 
scientific  research,  in  the  development  of 
philosophy  or  theology,  men  in  short  who 
have  any  occasion  to  examine  the  literary  re- 
mains of  the  past.  If  you  would  make  or 
attract  scholars  you  must  furnish  the  imple- 
ments with  which  they  labor,  and  you  must 
give  them  that  mental  pabulum  without  which 
they  would  starve  and  die. 

Then,  finally,  a  university  must  have 
loyal  children  —  men  who  love  her,  if  for 
no  other  reason,  because  she  is  their  mother ; 
men  who  are  devoted  to  her  interests,  who  will 
cheerfully  endure  sacrifices  and  even  die  for 
her  sake.  The  alumni  of  every  college  have 
the  power  in  their  own  hands  to  make  or 
break  her  reputation.  If  they  are  true  men, 
pursuing  their  vocations  with  honorable 
fidelity  and  with  an  ambition,'  worthy  and 
sublime,  not  only  to  reach  the  highest  attain- 
ments possible  for  themselves,  but  to  serve, 
as  they  are  able,  their  country  and  their  kind  ; 
and,  above  all,  if  they  maintain,  through  all 
the  vicissitudes  of  their  experience,  an  affec- 
tionate regard  for  their  Alma  Mater,  sound- 
ing her  praises  on  every  occasion,  vindicating 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  33 

her  name  from  calumny  and  reproach,  she 
will  continually  rise  to  new  heights  of  glory 
and  renown,  and  increase  from  year  to  year 
in  those  traditions  which  never  fail  to  inspire 
the  student  with  all  the  charms  of  poetry  and 
romance.  lyike  Cornelia's  sons,  the  children 
of  a  college  are  her  jewels.  Always  she  leans 
upon  them  with  confiding  affection  and  par- 
donable pride  ;  at  the  same  time  she  stimu- 
lates them  to  great  activities  and  heroic  deeds. 
L,et  the  children  of  Tufts  College  remember 
this,  and  ever  maintain  "  such  honorable 
carriages  ' '  that  she  never  will  have  cause  to 
blush  for  their  folly,  or  mourn  over  their 
treachery  and  desertion. 

Thus  I  have  tried  to  sketch  the  university 
which  will  meet  the  wants  of  the  country  in 
present  and  future  times.  If  the  picture 
seems  extravagant,  you  will  bear  me  witness, 
I  doubt  not,  that  I  have  not  exceeded  the 
bounds  of  possible  reality.  Certainly  it  can- 
not be  more  improbable  than  even  our  present 
attainments  must  have  seemed  when  the  first 
President  was  inaugurated  twenty  years  ago. 
We  have  no  apologies  to  make  for  the  exist- 
ence of  this  College.  It  arose  out  of  the  in- 
tellectual necessities  of  a  great  people,  and 
every  man  among  us  must  feel  a  thrill  of  ex- 


34  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

ultation  as  he  recalls  its  past  triumphs.  We 
are  proud  of  its  history — proud  of  the  noble 
men  who  have  filled  the  presidential  office 
before  me,  and  it  is  the  devout  prayer  of  all 
our  hearts,  that  he  who  has  just  laid  aside 
this  dignity,  may  long  live  to  witness  with 
affectionate  interest  the  increasing  power  and 
glory  of  the  institution,  whose  material  devel- 
opment he  has  done  more  than  any  man 
among  the  living  or  the  dead  to  promote, 
whose  intellectual  aims  he  has  so  completely 
represented  and  embodied,  and  whose  chief 
administrative  responsibilities  he  has  dis- 
charged with  rare  ability  and  success.  We 
are  proud  of  the  noble  band  of  professors  and 
teachers  who  have  labored  from  the  begin- 
ning, with  such  patient  and  self-sacrificing 
devotion,  to  fashion  this  school  according  to 
the  idea  which  I  have  all-too-faintly  indicated. 
We  are  proud  of  our  patrons  and  founders, 
and  of  the  unexampled  beneficence  which 
they  have  invariably  manifested  ;  and  not  the 
least  of  all  we  are  proud  of  our  Alumni,  for 
what  they  have  already  accomplished  and  for 
the  abundant  promise  which  they  give  of 
future  eminence  and  renown. 

To  preside  over  such  a  college  is  no  light 
responsibility.     Sensible  as  I  am  of  the  com- 


INAUGURAL   ADDRESS  35 

pliment  implied  in  an  election  to  such  a  post, 
be  assured,  I  have  not  entered  upon  its  duties 
without  due  reflection.  Through  prayers 
and  tears  I  have  approached  them  ;  and  only 
in  obedience  to  a  mandate,  which,  to  me  was 
imperative,  should  I  have  ventured  to  aband- 
on the  cherished  ambitions  of  my  maturer 
manhood  and  assume  so  great  a  burden. 
Because  I  love  the  Church  which  this  College 
was  intended  to  strengthen  and  advance  ; 
because  I  love  the  College  which  has  made  me 
what  I  am,  there  was  for  me  no  alternative.  I 
trust  I  shall  be  found  to  have  some  qualifica- 
tions for  my  work.  At  least,  I  am  deeply 
interested  in  young  men.  I  have,  as  you 
have  seen,  a  high  regard  for  the  value  of  edu- 
cation ;  and  I  believe  I  appreciate,  in  some 
faint  degree,  the  solemn  relation  which  cul- 
ture sustains  to  religion.  You  may,  there- 
fore, I  think,  safely  trust  your  sons  to  my 
care.  I  will  watch  over  them  with  fraternal 
interest,  and  try  to  guide  them  with  a  fatherly 
solicitude,  not  only  to  the  fountains  of  pure 
knowledge,  but  to  the  serene  heights  of 
righteousness  and  peace. 

I  enter  upon  my  work  with  the  greater  confi- 
dence, because  I  am  assured,  at  the  outset  of 
it,  of  the  cordial  welcome  and  co-operation  of 


36  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

the  faculty  and  undergraduates;  and  because 
I  can  turn  in  every  time  of  need  to  the  honor- 
able and  reverend  trustees  in  the  confidence 
of  a  generous  and  hearty  support.  We  shall 
all  of  us,  however,  require  the  assistance  of  a 
wider  public.  Especially  do  I  invite  the 
frank  counsel  and  confidential  friendship  of 
my  brethren  of  the  Alumni.  In  a  peculiar 
and  very  important  sense,  the  College  is 
theirs ;  and  it  is  within  their  power  to  exert 
a  greater  influence  than  any  other  body  of 
men  whatever  over  its  achievements  and 
destiny.  By  wisdom  and  prudence  they  can 
easily  direct  its  action  and  shape  its  policy. 
I  invoke,  moreover,  the  continued  generosity 
of  all  its  friends. 

We  have  not  yet  reached  that  point  where 
we  can  afford,  even  if  we  were  disposed,  to 
disregard  the  favor  of  public  beneficence. 

Our  needs  are  still  many  and  great.  L,et  no 
man  say  that  Tufts  College,  because  of  her 
good  fortune  in  the  past,  is  placed  beyond  the 
possibility  of  want  hereafter.  In  reality  our 
necessities  to-day  are  very  pressing.  We 
need,  for  example,  at  least  two  more  profess- 
ors in  the  Divinity  School  to  relieve  the  already 
over- worked  teachers  there  who  are  carrying 
forward,  without  assistance,  a  course  of  study 


INAUGURAL,   ADDRESS  37 

covering  a  period  of  four  years,  with  most 
gratifying  results.  We  need  a  divinity  hall, 
which  will  enable  us  to  separate  the  students  of 
that  School  who  are  coming  to  us  in  constantly 
increasing  numbers,  from  the  candidates  for 
the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts,  and  furnish 
us  with  ample  and  convenient  rooms  for  lec- 
tures and  class-work.  We  need  a  new  scien- 
tific building  appropriately  arranged  and  fur- 
nished. We  need  a  library,  new-created, 
almost,  from  the  bottom.  And  here  it  is  im- 
possible to  set  any  reasonable  limit  to  what 
might  profitably  be  done.  Why,  even  a  mill- 
ion dollars  would  not  be  too  large  a  founda- 
tion for  such  a  collection  as  every  first-class 
university  should  have.  We  need  a  gymna- 
sium, and  more  than  all,  —  yea,  first  of  all, 
we  need  a  comely  and  commodious  chapel, 
which  by  the  beauty  and  fitness  of  its  adorn- 
ments, will  invite  the  pupils  to  worship, 
excite  their  religious  feelings  and  afford 
them  spiritual  refreshment  and  repose,  at  the 
same  time  that  it  answers  the  requirements 
of  these  families  around  us  who  are  depend- 
ent upon  us  for  Christian  privileges.  It  is 
entirely  safe  to  assert,  that  the  time  can  never 
come  when  valuable  gifts  may  not  be  applied 
to  useful  ends.  Then,  too,  we  need  students, 


38  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

in  every  department, — young  men  fired  by 
a  devout  and  holy  zeal  to  possess  all  the 
available  secrets  of  the  universe,  and  to  fit 
themselves  to  stand  hereafter  as  priests  in  the 
grand  temple  of  learning.  Would  that  my 
voice  might  reach  the  remotest  boundaries  of 
our  Church !  How  gladly  would  I  call,  as 
with  trumpet-blast,  those  who  have  any  re- 
sponsibility for  the  education  of  young  men  ! 
How  gladly  would  I  rouse  the  hearts  of 
young  men  themselves,  until  they  should 
come,  in  overwhelming  numbers,  as  they 
went  after  Abelard  at  Paris  in  the  twelfth 
century,  content  to  live  in  booths  of  their  own 
construction  and  subsist  on  a  diet  of  herbs,  if 
only  they  might  profit  by  the  instructions  of 
that  matchless  teacher ;  as  they  went  in  the 
same  epoch  by  thousands  and  tens  of  thous- 
ands to  Oxford  and  Bologna. 

That  we  may  make  at  least  some  approach 
towards  the  realization  of  the  most  immediate 
and  worthy  of  these  ends,  we  invoke  the 
aid  of  all.  Remember  the  College,  beloved 
brethren  and  friends,  wherever  the  pathway  of 
your  life  may  chance  to  run.  Remember  it 
earnestly  and  devoutly  in  your  prayers  before 
God.  Remember  it  whenever  you  have  any- 
thing to  bestow  that  will  increase  the  funds  of 


INAUGURAI,  ADDRESS  39 

its  treasury  or  enrich  its  museums  or  its 
libraries.  Remember  it  in  your  wills,  no 
matter  how  small  the  sum  you  can  afford  to 
bequeath  it.  The  little  mountain  rills  feed 
the  mighty  stream  which  bears  on  its  bosom 
to  the  sea  the  commerce  of  a  continent. 
Remember  it  when  you  look  into  the  fair  and 
hopeful  faces  of  your  little  sons  and  try  to 
think  how  you  will  transfigure  toil  for  them 
and  make  this  world  through  which  they  are 
compelled  to  walk, — however  humble  and 
obscure  their  lot,  however  many  and  great 
the  burdens  under  which  they  bend, — one 
bright,  sweet  vale  of  celestial  sunlight  and 
heavenly  verdure. 


JOHN  BOYLE  O'REIU/Y 

ORATION  DELIVERED  AT  THE  UNVEIUNG  OP  THE 
MONUMENT  IN  BOSTON,  JUNE  20,  1896 


John  Boyle  O'Reilly  was  born  on  June  28, 
1844,  in  Dowth  Castle,  which  is  situated  on 
the  South  bank  of  the  river  Boyne,  in  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  and  historic  spots  in  all 
Ireland.  The  very  air  of  the  place  is  redo- 
lent of  memories  and  traditions,  associated 
alike  with  the  glory  and  the  degradation  of  the 
Green  Island.  On  his  father's  side  he  had 
behind  him  a  long  line  of  noble  and  patriotic 
ancestors.  His  mother  was  of  like  honorable 
stock.  His  childhood  home  was  one  of  re- 
finement and  culture.  He  was  well-born, 
fulfilling  Dr.  Holmes's  condition  of  a  liberal 
education  which  must  begin  with  one's 
grandfather. 

Indeed,  from  the  earliest  times  the 
O'Reillys  had  been  distinguished  not  only 
for  their  princely  blood  and  high  social  stand- 
ing, but  for  their  martial  deeds  and  devotion 
to  their  country.  In  the  later  generations 
they  have  taken  to  quieter  and  more  studious 


ORATION  41 

ways.  The  father  of  John  Boyle  O'Reilly 
was  a  scholar  and  a  teacher  of  youth. 
Dowth  Castle  was  a  school-house,  and  from 
his  very  infancy,  therefore,  he  was  a  pupil, 
with  his  father  for  a  teacher.  What  wonder 
that  with  such  surroundings  and  under  such 
influences  the  quick-witted  youth,  with  his 
ardent  temperament  and  sensitive  nature, 
should  have  imbibed  an  intense  devotion  to 
his  native  land  ? 

From  the  beginning  he  was  fond  of  out- 
door sports  and  of  natural  scenery.  He  in- 
dulged in  all  the  rough  and  tumble  of  boyish 
life.  He  romped,  hunted,  fished  and  swam 
in  the  Boyne,  thus  laying  the  foundation  of 
that  robust  physical  constitution  which  stood 
him  in  such  stead  in  after  years.  It  was  the 
exuberance  of  his  spirits  that  enabled  him  to 
put  in  that  store  of  health  which  rendered 
him  superior  to  pestilence  and  death  when 
others  all  around  him  were  falling  before  the 
insidious  poison  of  malaria  or  wasting  from 
scant  or  unwholesome  diet.  The  beauty  of 
the  landscape  kindled  his  imagination  and 
appealed  to  the  tenderest  sentiments  of  his 
soul.  The  bees,  the  birds,  the  flowers,  the 
fields,  the  running  waters,  the  woods  and 
hills  all  had  a  message  for  him.  Those 


42  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

scenes  of  his  youth  seemed  to  be  stamped 
upon  his  mind  like  an  ineffaceable  picture. 
The  farther  he  was  removed  from  them  by 
distance,  the  more  remote  from  him  they  were 
in  time,  the  more  vivid  they  became  in  his 
recollection.  There  is  something  poetic  and 
yet  sad  almost  to  heartbreaking  in  that  earn- 
est request  to  his  friend,  Father  Conaty,  who 
was  visiting  Ireland  to  see  where  he  was 
born.  "It  is  the  loveliest  spot  in  the  world. 
I  have  not  seen  it  for  over  twenty-five  years, 
but,  oh,  God  !  I  would  like  to  see  it  again. 
See  it  for  me,  will  you  ?" 

It  may  be  a  question  how  far  external  sur- 
roundings contribute  to  the  poetic  faculty  in 
men.  Probably  we  cannot  have  strong  poetic 
expression  without  the  poetic  temperament  to 
begin  with.  But  given  that,  the  early  con- 
ditions under  which  the  mind  is  awakened 
and  receives  its  first  bias  are  of  momentous 
importance.  No  one  can  read  critically  the 
writings  of  Mr.  O'Reilly,  either  his  formal 
verse  or  his  prose,  which  is  often  times  no  less 
poetical  than  his  verse,  without  feeling  that 
the  inspiration  of  all  is  to  be  found  not  only 
in  that  ardent  love  of  nature  which  was  so 
early  developed  in  him,  but  in  those  scenes 
of  surpassing  beauty  which  made  their  lasting 


ORATION  43 

and  irresistible  appeal  to  his  youthful  imagi- 
nation. Who  that  ever  listened  to  his  pass- 
ionate description  of  his  native  land,  more 
beautiful  in  his  conception  than  any  other 
land  under  the  sun  ;  her  climate  tempered  by 
ocean  breezes  on  every  side;  her  soil  fertilized 
by  the  clouds  from  the  Gulf  Stream  which 
break  and  discharge  their  moisture  on  every 
hillside  and  in  every  valley,  making  the  land 
green  to  the  very  tops  of  the  mountains  ;  her 
broad  rivers;  her  rushing  brooks  and  tum- 
bling cataracts,  without  feeling  that  it  was 
the  boy  in  him  that  was  speaking,  and  giving 
vent  to  those  delightful  memories  of  youth 
which  time  can  never  efface. 

His  schooling  ended  where  most  boys' 
schooling  begins,  at  eleven  years  of  age. 
Perhaps  nothing  proclaims  more  emphatically 
the  quality  of  his  mental  endowment.  Yet  it 
must  be  remembered  that  he  went  out  of 
school  in  Dowth  Castle  to  enter  the  printing 
office,  that  university  in  which  so  many  men 
of  commanding  genius,  from  Benjamin 
Franklin  to  Horace  Greeley,  have  received 
their  introduction  to  the  higher  learning.  He 
entered  the  employ  of  the  Drogheda  Argus 
as  an  apprentice,  where  he  remained  four 
years.  Owing  to  the  death  of  the  proprietor, 


44  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

the  term  of  his  apprenticeship  was  broken. 
From  there  he  went  to  Preston,  England, 
where  he  found  service  on  the  Guardian  of 
that  city  for  a  period  of  three  years. 

The  seven  years  thus  spent  in  the  compos- 
ing room  were  the  quietest  years  of  his  life, 
but  from  an  intellectual  point  of  view  they 
were  perhaps  the  most  profitable.  They 
were  years  of  study,  of  profound  reflection 
and  of  careful  training  in  the  forms  of  ex- 
pression. They  afforded  him  an  opportunity 
to  become  familiar  with  the  history  of  his 
country,  to  acquire  a  clear  perception  of  the 
wrongs  she  had  suffered,  and  to  be  thrilled 
with  the  story  of  the  patriots  and  heroes  who 
in  other  times  had  made  the  cause  of  Ireland 
their  own.  So  that  when  he  was  summoned 
by  his  father  to  his  native  land,  he  was  not 
only  a  man  grown,  robust  and  healthy,  fit  for 
any  kind  of  manly  service,  but  he  had  a  full 
intellectual  equipment,  as  we  are  wont  to  say 
of  the  young  college  graduate,  the  ' '  complete 
and  generous  education,"  as  Milton  has  so 
aptly  phrased  it,  "  which  fits  a  man  to  per- 
form justly,  skilfully  and  magnanimously  all 
the  offices,  both  private  and  public,  of  peace 
and  war." 

His  return  to  Ireland  marked  a  great  crisis 


ORATION  45 

in  his  career.  He  went  back  intending  to 
take  up  the  work  of  journalism,  to  which  he 
seems  almost  to  have  been  predestined,  but 
in  reality  to  enter  the  Tenth  Hussars,  the 
famous  regiment  of  cavalry,  stationed  then  at 
Drogheda,  but  subsequently  transferred  to 
Dublin.  He  had  all  the  elements  of  a  good 
soldier.  He  was  young,  good  tempered,  ar- 
dently enthusiastic,  intelligent  and  obedient 
to  discipline.  He  had  also  a  fine  physique, 
a  handsome  countenance,  and  a  courage  that 
was  absolutely  intrepid.  That  he  did  make 
a  good  soldier  was  the  unanimous  testi- 
mony of  his  officers  and  comrades.  Probably 
there  was  open  to  him  as  brilliant  an  oppor- 
tunity as  could  be  open  to  any  young  subject 
of  the  Queen  enlisting  in  the  ranks  as  a  pri- 
vate. He  was  a  subject  of  Great  Britain. 
His  position  as  a  soldier  called  upon  him 
daily  to  salute  the  cross  of  St.  Andrew  and 
St.  George.  Under  that  inspiring  symbol  he 
was  ready  to  do  valiant  service  wherever  the 
sword  of  England  clashed  with  the  sword  of 
other  nations.  But  he  had  also  the  birth- 
right of  an  Irishman.  Like  many  a  loyal 
subject  of  George  III  in  America,  a  century 
and  a  quarter  ago,  he  put  the  claims  of  native 
land  above  the  claims  of  England.  He  was 


46  OCCASIONAL   ADDRKSSES 

a  disciple  of  O'Connell  and  Emmet.  The 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  England's 
misrule  in  Ireland  had  made  their  indelible 
impress  upon  his  soul.  Wherever  he  went, 
and  whatever  alliance  he  formed,  the  call  of 
his  country  sounded  in  his  ears  with  all  the 
sweetness  and  power  of  a  trumpet,  and  when 
she  summoned  him  he  must  obey,  if  need  be, 
with  his  honor  and  his  life. 

As  he  entered  the  military  service  in  the 
twentieth  year  of  his  age,  the  great  Fenian 
movement,  which  had  its  beginning  about 
the  year  1860,  and  which  before  it  had  spent 
its  force  shook  the  British  nation  from  centre 
to  circumference,  was  just  coming  to  its  cli- 
max. Before  the  year  1865  nearly  every 
youth  of  Irish  birth  or  parentage  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  had  been  swept  into  this 
movement.  Those  who  were  enlisted  in  the 
British  service  formed  no  exception.  Indeed, 
it  was  the  aim  of  the  leaders  to  secure  the 
alliance  of  the  Irish  contingent  which  consti- 
tuted then  nearly  one-third  of  the  entire  force 
of  the  army.  Their  aim  was  not  merely  to 
sow  disaffection  in  the  ranks  of  the  soldiers, 
but  in  the  armed  conflict  at  which  they  were 
aiming,  first  to  produce  a  great  cleavage  in 
the  British  forces  of  one-third  or  one-half  of 


ORATION  47 

the  soldiery,  and,  secondly,  to  obtain  a  body 
of  one  hundred  thousand  men,  more  or  less, 
who  had  received  martial  training,  and  who 
might  become  the  nucleus  of  the  army  of 
the  Irish  republic. 

That  John  Boyle  O'Reilly  should  join  this 
movement,  when  asked,  was  as  natural  as 
that  he  should  take  a  swim  in  the  river  Boyne 
on  a  hot  summer's  day.  He  joined  it  with 
mind  and  body  and  heart  and  soul.  As  a 
boy  climbs  to  some  eminence  in  order  to  take 
a  more  effective  ' '  header, "  so  he  literally 
plunged  into  the  great  tide  of  Fenianism  and 
committed  himself  absolutely  and  without  re- 
serve to  the  current.  I  need  not  rehearse  the 
story.  It  is  known  by  heart.  Fenianism, 
like  many  other  efforts  for  the  liberation  of 
Ireland,  came  to  a  sad  and  inglorious  end. 
Its  plots  were  exposed,  its  leaders  arrested, 
and  many  of  those  who  had  part  in  it  were 
convicted  of  treason  and  doomed  to  imprison- 
ment or  exile. 

O'Reilly's  turn  came  with  the  rest  and  it  is 
needless  to  say  that  he  took  it  as  a  brave  man 
should,  in  the  spirit  of  the  great  Irish  patriots 
who  had  served  as  his  models  of  heroism. 
He  knew  when  his  hour  was  at  hand,  but  he 
never  sought  to  evade  the  responsibility.  By 


48  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

confession  and  apology  he  might,  like  many 
another,  have  secured  his  liberty.  Indeed, 
the  bribe  was  repeatedly  held  out  to  him,  but 
he  scorned  it,  he  put  it  aside,  as  the  tempta- 
tion of  the  devil.  He  had  done  what  he  had 
done,  and  he  was  neither  ashamed  nor  sorry 
for  it.  He  was  Ireland's  servant,  and  in  her 
name  he  was  ready  to  suffer  or  die. 

In  this  connection,  however,  I  wish  to  say 
that  his  trial  was,  to  my  mind,  a  travesty 
of  justice.  It  was  one  of  those  cases  where 
an  accused  person  is  convicted  beforehand  in 
the  presuppositions  of  the  court.  No  weak- 
ness in  the  evidence  and  no  defense  which 
the  accused  could  make  was  of  any  avail. 
He  was  convicted  of  treason  and  sentenced 
to  death.  The  sentence  was  immediately 
commuted,  however,  to  twenty  years'  im- 
prisonment. 

What  a  horrible  prospect  was  that  for  a 
young  man  of  twenty-two  !  A1J  his  young 
manhood  blighted  !  All  his  youthful  hopes 
and  ambitions  cast  to  the  winds  !  He  might 
well  have  been  excused  if  he  had  yielded  to 
the  most  wretched  lamentations  of  misan- 
thropy and  despair.  But  he  did  not.  He 
preserved  his  wonderful  buoyancy  of  spirits  in 
his  worst  sufferings,  rejoicing  that  he  had 


ORATION  49 

been  transformed  from  an  ' '  English  soldier  ' ' 
into  an  "Irish  felon,"  and  even  expressing  de- 
vout gratitude  to  God  that  he  was  counted 
worthy  of  the  great  and  enduring  fellowship 
of  his  country's  heroes  and  martyrs.  It  was 
this  temper,  doubtless,  which  went  far  to  pre- 
serve his  health  and  keep  his  faculties  alert 
so  that  when  the  opportunity  of  escape  finally 
came  he  did  not  fail. 

He  had  his  taste  of  all  the  different  phases 
of  British  prison  life.  At  Millbank  he  under- 
went solitary  confinement  for  several  months, 
the  severest  form  of  punishment  known  to 
prison  discipline.  From  Millbank  he  was 
transferred  to  Chatham,  where  he  was  put  to 
work  in  the  prison  brickyards  with  the  com- 
mon criminals.  For  attempting  to  escape 
from  here  he  was  put  on  bread  and  water  for 
a  month  and  then  removed,  first  to  Ports- 
mouth and  afterward  to  Dartmoor — Dartmoor, 
the  very  name  of  which  awakens  in  the 
American  mind  the  worst  feeling  of  detesta- 
tion and  resentment.  How  he  survived  the 
harsh  treatment,  the  terrible  labor,  the 
wretched  fare  and  the  unsanitary  conditions 
of  Dartmoor,  which  is  as  much  a  reproach  to 
England  as  ever  the  Bastile  was  to  France, 
or  as  Siberia  is  to  Russia,  only  God  can  tell. 


50  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

Perhaps  because  he  was  reserved  by  God  for 
higher  service  to  the  human  race. 

At  all  events  a  change  came  to  him,  sooner, 
no  doubt,  than  he  had  expected,  which  he 
hailed  with  almost  as  much  joy  as  he  would 
have  hailed  a  proclamation  of  freedom.  He 
was  one  of  those  who  had  been  chosen  for 
transportation  to  Australia.  It  was  little 
more  perhaps,  than  the  change  of  one  form  of 
hardship  for  another.  But  it  was  at  all 
events  a  change.  Moreover,  it  gave  room  for 
the  indulgence  of  the  hope  that  somehow  he 
would  ere  long  escape  from  that  hateful  bond- 
age. 

He  was  not  relieved  from  the  hardship  of 
prison  life  in  Australia.  But  somehow  his 
good  nature,  the  rare  charm  of  his  personal- 
ity, which  even  his  prison  garb  could  not 
conceal,  won  the  confidence  of  his  keepers, 
and,  notwithstanding  his  repeated  efforts  for 
liberty,  procured  for  him  many  privileges. 
These  he  sought  to  make  use  of  for  the  real- 
ization of  his  dream.  But  his  progress  was 
slow,  and  it  was  only  after  what  seemed  to 
him  an  interminable  waiting  that  he  fell  in 
with  the  good  priest,  Father  McCabe,  who 
promised  to  think  out  for  him  a  way  to  free- 
dom. The  thrilling  story  is  too  long  to  be 


ORATION  51 

told  here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  through 
Father  McCabe's  gracious  instrumentality 
and  the  loyal  and  devoted  friends  whom  he 
called  to  his  aid,  the  way  was  found,  not,  to 
be  sure,  without  almost  unutterable  suffering 
and  many  perils  of  the  gravest  sort,  by  which 
he  was  at  last  placed  on  board  an  American 
whaler,  and  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes, 
bade  good-bye  forever  to  the  tyranny  and 
woe  of  Knglish  prison  life. 

Of  course,  Englishmen  say  that  John 
Boyle  O'Reilly  was  a  traitor,  that  he  had 
joined  and  taken  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  a 
society  which  menaced  the  integrity  of  the 
British  nation,  and  that  he  had  entered  into  a 
conspiracy  to  betray  the  army  in  whose  ranks 
he  was  enrolled.  Therefore  his  punishment 
was  merited.  There  are  those  outside  of  Eng- 
land who  make  the  same  accusation,  who 
maintain  not  only  that  his  punishment  was 
deserved,  but  that  in  seeking  to  break  away 
from  it  he  was  simply  adding  to  the  crimes 
on  account  of  which  he  was  justly  held. 
This  attitude  may  be  expected  of  an  English- 
man. It  may  even  be  excused  in  an  advo- 
cate of  monarchical  government  and  an 
apologist  of  despotism.  But  it  is  a  strange 
position  for  a  free-born  American  citizen  to 


52  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

assume.  We  say  that  the  struggle  which 
ended  in  the  independence  of  the  colonies, 
and  opened  the  way  for  our  great  and  free 
republic,  was  just  and  holy  in  the  sight  of 
God.  But  in  the  same  sense  that  John  Boyle 
O'Reilly  was  a  traitor,  Sam  Adams  and 
John  Hancock  and  George  Washington  and 
Thomas  Jefferson  were  traitors.  In  the  lan- 
guage of  Edward  Everett,  '  *  they  were  rebels, 
obnoxious  to  the  fate  of  rebel."  England 
would  have  decreed  a  worse  punishment  for 
them  if  she  could  have  captured  them  than 
she  did  to  the  young  Irish  Hussar,  whose  love 
of  native  land  transcended  his  allegiance  to 
the  Crown  of  England.  In  the  same  way 
that  we  should  have  applauded  the  escape  of 
one  of  our  revolutionary  heroes  from  the 
clutches  of  the  enemy,  we  should  welcome 
O'Reilly  fleeing  from  the  hardships  of  an 
Australian  penal  colony. 

On  the  twenty-third  day  of  November,  1869, 
he  landed  in  Philadelphia.  To  the  ordinary 
observer  he  may  have  appeared  not  much 
different  from  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
Irish  immigrants  who  had  preceded  him  to 
these  shores.  But  the  resemblance  was 
scarcely  more  than  superficial.  To  be  sure, 
he  was  Irish,  and  had  in  large  measure  all 


ORATION  63 

the  peculiar  traits  by  which  his  race  is  distin- 
guished. But  he  was  also  an  American.  As 
Minerva  leaped  full  grown  from  the  head  of 
Jove,  so  he,  in  the  maturity  of  his  powers, 
stood  up  for  the  first  time  on  American  soil 
an  American  citizen.  His  first  act  was  to 
take  out  his  preliminary  papers  of  naturaliza- 
tion, and  swear  allegiance  to  that  flag  under 
whose  gracious  folds  he  had  come  from  dark- 
ness to  light.  It  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration 
to  say  that  his  advent  was  the  grandest  birth 
that  took  place  within  the  limits  of  the  nation 
during  the  year  1869.  I  say  this,  not  merely 
because  he  was  a  man  of  extraordinary  intel- 
lectual gifts,  or  because  of  the  contribution 
he  made  to  American  letters,  but  because, 
being  imbued  with  the  true  spirit  of  freedom 
and  humanity,  he  was  an  interpreter  of  Ameri- 
can ideas  and  a  leader  of  hosts  of  men 
toward  the  larger  conception  of  civic  equality 
and  spiritual  emancipation,  in  which  our  be- 
loved nationality  is  to  find  its  perfection  and 
glory. 

He  came  to  America  a  stranger.  He 
hardly  suspected  that  there  was  a  living  soul 
from  end  to  end  of  this  broad  land  who  would 
take  cognizance  of  his  coming.  Yet  his  ad- 
vent was  heralded  and  waited  for.  The 


54  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

story  of  his  escape  had  been  told  in  Ireland 
and  repeated  in  the  American  press.  He 
had  already  won  fame.  Fugitive  pieces  from 
his  pen  had  found  their  way  through  prison 
bars,  and  had  already  caused  him  to  be  desig- 
nated as  "  the  poet."  Moreover,  he  had  held 
a  conspicuous  place  in  the  Fenian  struggle, 
and  though  Fenianism  had  experienced  noth- 
ing but  disaster,  the  few  in  America  who  still 
ventured  to  call  themselves  Fenians,  remem- 
bered with  admiration  the  brave  young 
soldier  who  had  dared  and  suffered  so  much 
in  that  lost  cause.  They  received  him  with 
cordiality  and  extended  to  him  such  poor 
hospitality  as  they  could  command.  In 
Philadelphia  and  New  York  and  Boston  op- 
portunity was  given  him  to  recount  his  per- 
sonal experiences,  and  tell  the  larger  story  of 
the  Irish  political  prisoners.  So  that  to  his 
amazement,  no  doubt,  he  found  himself  among 
friends.  It  was  as  if  the  old  world  had  jour- 
neyed with  him,  and  enabled  him  to  find 
here  under  other  skies  and  in  very  unfamiliar 
surroundings  the  Ireland  that  he  loved. 

But  the  old  life,  however  delightful  and 
attractive,  was  not  what  he  was  seeking.  He 
had  come  hither  to  begin  a  new  life,  to  be- 
come the  centre  of  a  fresh  set  of  influences 


ORATION  55 

and  to  carve  out  for  himself  a  name  and  a 
destiny  wholly  disconnected  with  his  past. 
He  took  up  his  abode  in  Boston,  where  a  few 
congenial  spirits  gathered  around  him  and 
never  wavered  in  their  affection  and  devotion 
so  long  as  he  lived.  By  the  same  law  that  in 
physics  a  body  freely  moving  in  space  must 
always  go  in  the  direction  of  the  least  resist- 
ance, he  gravitated  to  journalism.  He 
found  the  work  for  which  he  was  born,  and 
the  work  found  the  man  for  whom  work  al- 
ways waits.  From  the  hour  that  he  took  his 
seat  in  the  editorial  chair  of  the  Pilot  he  be- 
came one  of  the  great  forces  for  the  moulding 
of  public  opinion.  He  wielded  for  twenty 
years  an  influence  scarcely  surpassed  by  any 
of  the  great  journalists,  religious  or  secular, 
on  either  side  of  the  ocean.  Surely  that  were 
glory  enough  in  itself.  If  he  had  done  noth- 
ing else  to  win  the  admiration  of  the  world 
and  compel  the  gratitude  of  mankind,  this 
were  sufficient.  For  this  alone  we  might 
well  indulge  in  imposing  memorial  rites,  in- 
scribe his  name  on  enduring  bronze  and  place 
his  monument  in  the  busy  streets  of  the  city 
in  which  his  task  was  done. 

Journalism,    however,    was   his    vocation. 
It  was  the  profession  by  which  he  earned  his 


56  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

daily  bread.  But  his  avocation  was  im- 
mensely greater  than  his  vocation.  His 
varied  gifts  and  accomplishments  could  not 
be  confined  to  a  single  channel.  His  genius 
was  bound  to  rise  above  the  banks,  however 
high,  and  spread  abroad  a  vast  and  living 
tide  for  the  joy  and  refreshment  of  mankind. 
All  the  world  was  determined  to  taste  the 
qualities  of  his  ripe  and  rare  personality. 
This  man,  who  had  so  recently  worn  the  hu- 
miliating garb  of  a  prisoner,  was  an  orator, 
and  as  soon  as  he  had  acquired  command  of 
himself  in  the  presence  of  an  audience,  so 
that  he  could  think  logically  on  his  feet,  and 
use  his  clear  and  ringing  voice  with  full 
effect,  multitudes  were  importunate  to  hear 
the  message  he  had  to  tell.  Before  vast 
audiences  in  every  part  of  the  country,  from 
Maine  to  California,  he  read  his  indictment  of 
Great  Britain  for  her  misrule  and  tyranny  in 
Ireland,  or  discoursed  on  some  literary  theme 
with  profound  wisdom  and  entrancing  beauty, 
holding  men  spellbound  by  the  power  of  his 
eloquence. 

His  poetic  gift,  also,  of  which  he  had  given 
signs  in  his  imprisonment,  asserted  itself 
with  increasing  power  and  certainty.  As 
the  great  questions  which  are  of  perennial  in- 


ORATION  57 

terest  passed  in  review  before  him,  he  took 
them  up  and  put  in  the  crystalline  form  of 
poetic  phrase  the  truth  which  abides  forever. 
Moreover,  his  spontaneous  enthusiasm,  his 
ready  wit,  his  wonderful  conversational  pow- 
ers, his  genial  and  kindly  spirit,  made  him 
not  only  the  welcome,  but  the  indispensable 
guest  at  clubs  and  social  reunions. 

But  all  this,  however  it  may  have  gratified 
his  ambition  and  made  him  feel  that  his  life 
had  a  meaning  and  a  purpose  beyond  the 
wildest  imaginings  of  his  youth,  was  more 
than  a  nature  so  finely  strung  could  endure. 
The  best  made  instrument  loses  its  tone  and 
quality  by  constant  striking  of  the  keys,  and 
at  last  becomes  fit  only  for  the  junk  heap. 
The  stoutest  anchor  will  in  time  give  way 
before  the  awful  wrench  and  pull  of  an  ocean 
tempest.  The  human  soul  is  a  harp  of  a 
thousand  strings,  but  it  can  be  so  wrought  and 
played  upon  that  by-and-by  its  sweetest  and 
most  resonant  chords  will  cease  to  vibrate. 
The  time  comes  when,  in  the  wear  and  stress 
of  a  busy  life,  only  the  hand  of  an  angel  can  so 
sweep  the  strings  of  the  soul  that  it  will  give 
forth  the  music  of  the  spheres.  This  was 
the  case  with  John  Boyle  O'Reilly.  His 
vitality  was  most  extraordinary,  but  he  made 


58  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

such  fearful  drafts  upon  it  that  at  length  it 
was  exhausted.  He  stretched  the  cable  of 
his  life  until  there  was  no  more  elasticity  in 
it.  He  poured  forth  his  nervous  energy  in 
so  many  ways  and  in  such  fulness  that  at 
length  it  was  all  gone,  and  "sleep  which 
knits  up  the  ravelled  sleeve  of  care,"  ceased 
to  visit  his  eyelids.  Then  came  the  end. 
Suddenly  and  unexpectedly,  even  to  his 
nearest  friends,  the  cry  broke  forth,  on  the 
still  air  of  the  Christian  Sunday,  August 
tenth,  1890,  that  John  Boyle  O'Reilly  was 
dead. 

Before  that  sad  cry  men  stopped  and  held 
their  breath,  or  gathered  in  eager  and  silent 
groups  around  the  bulletin  boards,  as  they 
were  wont  to  assemble  in  the  awful  days  of 
the  Rebellion,  when  the  news  of  a  battle  was 
posted  before  the  great  newspaper  offices,  and 
scan  with  wan  faces  the  ominous  list  of  the 
wounded  and  dead.  A  great  personal  and 
living  sorrow  had  all  at  once  come  into  the 
life  of  nearly  every  man,  woman  and  child  in 
America.  Even  beyond  seas  the  hearts  of 
the  people  were  wrung.  A  man  who  bore  no 
title,  held  no  office  and  carried  no  insignia  of 
battle  had  fallen  at  his  post  of  duty.  Yet 
there  have  been  kings,  rulers  of  high  quality, 


ORATION  59 

who  have  held  their  office  meekly  and  used 
their  powers  for  the  good  of  their  subjects, 
who,  in  their  death,  have  failed  to  be  honored 
by  a  tithe  of  the  sorrow  that  the  death  of  this 
man  of  the  people,  this  fugitive  from  English 
justice,  whose  crime  was  unforgiven,  and 
who  had  been  denied  the  poor  privilege  of 
standing  beside  his  mother's  grave,  called 
forth  from  multitudes  in  every  land  beneath 
the  sun.  The  mournful  tidings  were  the 
signal  for  universal  grief.  Not  only  did  the 
columns  of  the  press  teem  with  expressions 
in  varying  phrases  of  the  people's  loss,  but 
in  many  of  the  chief  cities  of  the  nation  men, 
without  distinction  of  race  or  creed,  gathered 
in  great  companies,  and  eloquent  lips  broke 
forth  in  eulogy.  High  and  low,  rich  and 
poor,  scholars  and  unlettered  men,  vied  with 
each  other  in  casting  their  laurel  wreaths 
upon  his  bier  and  dropping  their  tears  upon 
his  sepulchre. 

What  were  the  qualities  in  this  man's  char- 
acter that  gave  him  such  high  distinction 
and  brought  him  such  universal  honor  ? 

It  is  impossible  to  say  just  how  posterity 
will  judge  him,  or  what  place  he  will  hold 
ultimately  among  the  leaders  and  teachers  of 
humanity.  But  there  are  some  things  on 


60  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

which  we  can  pronounce  with  certainty  that 
the  judgment  of  the  world  will  not  be  re- 
versed. 

First  of  all,  his  sincerity  and  gentleness 
were  of  the  rarest  order.  These  were  the 
qualities  that  drew  men  to  him,  and  held 
them,  just  as  the  particles  of  steel  are  drawn 
and  held  by  the  magnet.  His  soul  was  abso- 
lutely transparent  and  without  guile.  He 
had  all  the  simplicity,  spontaneity  and  genu- 
ineness of  a  child.  When  he  opened  his 
mind  on  any  subject  the  conviction  was  irre- 
sistible that  he  spoke  the  truth — at  least  as 
he  saw  it — the  whole  truth  and  nothing  but 
the  truth.  He  wore  his  heart  upon  his 
sleeve.  He  had  no  concealments  and  no  du- 
plicity. His  wisdom  was  not  of  the  self- 
conscious  sort,  which  puffs  and  struts  and 
vaunts  itself  before  men.  Everywhere  he 
was  the  Christian  gentleman,  and  his  wisdom, 
therefore,  was  of  that  refined  and  heavenly 
sort,  which  an  Apostle  has  described  as, 
"  first,  pure,  then  peaceable,  gentle  and  easy 
to  be  entreated,  full  of  mercy  and  good  fruits, 
without  partiality  and  without  hypocrisy." 
A  man  so  endowed  cannot  go  through  the 
world  without  having  troops  of  friends.  They 
will  rise  up  around  him  as  soldiers  gather  in 


ORATION  6 1 

battle  around  a  beloved  leader.  They  will 
give  him  unstinted  affection,  and  when  he 
raises  his  standard  and  sounds  the  advance 
they  will  follow  wherever  he  leads  the  way, 
even  though  it  be  into  the  jaws  of  death. 

But  he  had  many  charms  of  the  subtile 
sort.  His  culture  was  of  an  all-round  char- 
acter. More  than  any  man  of  modern  times, 
so  far  as  I  know,  he  reproduced  the  old 
Greek  life.  In  the  Olympic  games,  the  run- 
ner, the  boxer  and  the  charioteer,  the  reciter 
of  history,  the  orator  and  the  poet  received 
alike  the  laurel  wreath  of  victory ;  and  the 
same  person  might  take  part  in  every  contest. 
O'Reilly  was  equally  at  home  in  whatever 
effort  called  forth  the  best  in  men.  He  was 
an  expert  in  all  manly  sports.  His  muscle 
and  his  eye  had  been  trained  as  well  as  his 
brain.  But  he  also  excelled  in  the  creations 
of  the  mind.  He  was  a  master  of  speech,  and 
could  sway  an  audience  as  with  a  magician's 
wand.  In  presiding  at  a  literary  festival  his 
brilliancy  was  the  delight  and  wonder  of  his 
friends.  He  could  give  clear  utterance  to 
profound  truth,  and  could,  when  occasion 
required,  rise  with  the  sure,  firm  flight  of  an 
eagle  into  the  empyrean  of  poetic  vision. 

With  such  many-sided  gifts  it  was  inevi- 


62  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

table  that  he  should  be  a  subject  of  curiosity 
and  admiration.  The  witty,  the  learned  and 
gay  would  surely  desire  to  bask  in  the  sun- 
shine of  his  genius.  The  men  of  heavier 
mould,  but  who  were  ambitious  of  the  intel- 
lectual life,  would  seek  for  reenforcement 
and  inspiration  from  his  keen  and  super- 
abounding  intelligence  ;  and  those  who  dwelt 
on  the  plane  of  humble  and  ordinary  life 
waited  for  him  to  lift  them  by  his  more  than 
common  strength  to  the  mountain  tops  of 
boundless  prospect  and  heavenly  glory. 

Of  his  place  in  letters  it  is  too  early  to  speak 
with  certainty.  Undoubtedly  his  culture 
missed  the  refined  quality  that  is  apparent  in 
Lowell  and  Longfellow,  or  in  Moore  and  Shel- 
ley. His  schooling  was  too  brief  and  termi- 
nated too  early  to  secure  for  him  the  exquisite 
finish  which  nothing  but  schooling  can  give. 
It  is  clear  that  he  had  not  studied  the  great 
poetical  canons,  or,  if  he  had  studied  them, 
he  was  unable  to  bring  his  muse  completely 
under  their  control.  Hence  the  critics  will 
tell  us  that  his  verse  is  crude.  Without 
question  they  are  right.  But  the  crudeness, 
which  was  most  apparent  in  his  earlier  work, 
was  gradually  giving  way,  and  little  by  little 
he  was  acquiring  the  sure  and  strong  mastery 


ORATION  63 

of  his  lyre.  But  whatever  may  be  said  of  the 
roughness  of  his  execution,  and  of  his  failure 
to  meet  the  demands  of  conventional  stand- 
ards, no  one  will  deny  that  he  had  in  fullest 
measure  and  highest  degree  the  poetic  fire. 
None,  not  even  the  greatest  poets,  have  given 
more  unmistakable  evidence  of  ability  to 
touch  the  very  heart  of  truth,  which  is  the 
poet's  first  and  highest  function,  or  have  had 
a  more  commanding  conviction  of  the  undy- 
ing reality  of  the  ideal  realm  in  which  poets 
live  and  move  and  have  their  poetic  being. 
Moreover,  his  hand  swept  all  chords,  from 
the  fanciful  and  tender  to  the  majestic  and 
sublime.  In  the  very  nature  of  things, 
therefore,  not  only  must  his  poetry  make  its 
appeal  to  the  universal  heart  of  man,  but  it 
will  constitute  a  mine  in  which  future  poets, 
so  long  as  poetry  is  studied,  must  delve  for 
the  virgin  ore  of  poetic  truth. 

But  in  studying  this  man's  life,  I  think  I 
have  discovered  other  and  higher  qualities 
than  any  I  have  yet  named.  He  had  an  un- 
mistakable power  of  leadership.  He  seemed 
to  feel  that  it  was  his  province  to  go  before 
and  blaze  the  way.  As  a  journalist  he  strove 
to  be  in  advance  of  his  constituency.  There 
are  two  kinds  of  journalism ;  one  throws  it- 


64  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSKS 

self  on  the  great  current  of  public  opinion 
and  is  borne  along  with  it,  never  seeking  to 
do  more  than  voice  the  sentiments  of  the 
people  to  whom  it  appeals  for  support ;  the 
other  strikes  out  into  new  ways,  and  creates 
the  channel  in  which  public  opinion  must 
flow,  and  sets  up  for  the  people  the  indubi- 
table and  inexorable  moral  imperative  which 
their  situation  and  surroundings  have  evoked. 
Boyle  O'Reilly  belonged  to  the  latter  class  of 
journalists  as  clearly  as  Horace  Greeley  or 
L,yman  Abbott.  He  did  not  ask  his  great 
clientele  what  they  thought  or  what  they 
wanted.  He  proceeded  at  once,  and  without 
equivocation  or  apology,  to  tell  them  what 
they  ought  to  think  and  how  they  ought  to  be- 
have. He  startled  Irishmen  by  telling  them 
they  that  here  were  no  longer  Irishmen — ex- 
cept by  blood  and  memory  and  tradition — they 
were  American  citizens.  He  even  deprecated 
the  display  of  the  green  flag  in  processions 
and  on  festival  occasions,  because  so  long  as 
the  Irish  patriot  did  that,  he  would  give  ex- 
cuse to  the  Orangeman  to  hang  out  the 
symbol  which  stirs  the  deepest  resentment  in 
the  Irish  heart.  That  ancient  feud  had  no 
ground  for  continuance  in  America.  Here 
there  should  be  no  line  of  cleavage  between 


ORATION  65 

Catholics  and  Protestants,  or  between  Orange- 
men and  the  disciples  of  O'Connell.  Here 
all  branches  of  the  Irish  race  were  blended 
and  fused  together  in  the  fervent  heat  of 
American  equality.  They  should  march 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  therefore,  in  demonstra- 
tion of  joy  for  their  emancipation.  They 
should  join  hands  and  work  together  with  all 
their  might  to  strengthen  the  institutions  and 
make  more  solid  and  enduring  the  underly- 
ing principles  of  this  mighty  and  beneficent 
Republic. 

This  way  of  leadership,  let  me  say,  upon 
which  he  entered  with  bold  and  unfaltering 
tread,  swept  him  forward  to  sentiments  of  the 
loftiest  patriotism  and  the  broadest  humanity. 
He  was  something  of  a  partisan  and  had  his 
party  affiliations  as  most  men  do.  He  knew 
how  to  give  and  take  blows  in  behalf  of  party, 
and  could  rejoice  in  a  well-won  victory  as 
heartily  as  anybody.  But  if  a  question  was 
presented  which  involved  the  welfare  and 
honor  of  the  country,  his  mind  rose  instantly 
above  all  partisan  considerations.  Indeed, 
in  the  discussion  of  the  fundamental  princi- 
ples of  administration  or  government,  he  was 
unconscious  of  his  political  creed.  I  have 
heard  him  myself  by  more  than  an  hour  at  a 


66  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

stretch  indulge  in  the  most  scathing  denunci- 
ation of  that  wretched  English  policy  that  had 
made  commerce  an  impossibility  for  Ireland, 
destroyed  her  manufactures,  unchained  her 
waterfalls,  obliterated  industries,  and  even 
tried  to  cover  her  fertile  acres  with  desolation, 
without  seeming  to  see  in  it  the  slightest  re- 
flection upon  any  shibboleth  he  had  ever 
uttered. 

Nay,  when  the  inherent  and  inalienable 
rights  of  man  was  the  issue,  he  left  all  parties 
behind  him  and  took  his  stand  beside  Wen- 
dell Phillips,  the  great  iconoclast  and  re- 
former. No  singer  ' '  the  wide  world  round  ' ' 
has  ever  sung  in  clearer  accents  or  more  fer- 
vent spirit  the  great  song  of  humanity  than 
he — that  our  brotherhood  is  one,  and  thus 
transcends  all  limits  of  nationality  or  race  ; 
that  manhood  does  not  depend  upon  complex- 
ion, but  is  a  principle  of  the  blood  that  runs 
in  all  our  veins.  In  short,  that  k ' '  God  hath 
made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men  to  dwell 
on  all  the  face  of  the  earth." 

O  blood  of  the  people !     Changeless  tide,  through 

century,  creed  and  race  ! 
Still  one  as  the  salt  sea  is  one,  though  tempered  by 

sun  and  place ; 
The  same  in  the  ocean  currents  and  the  same  in  the 

sheltered  seas  ; 


ORATION  67 

Forever  the  fountain  of  common  hopes  and  kindly 

sympathies. 
Indian  and  Negro,  Saxon  and.  Celt,  Teuton  and  Latin 

and  Gaul — 
Mere    surface    shadow    and    sunshine,    while    the 

sounding  unifies  all  ! 
One  love,  one  hope,  one  duty  theirs  !     No  matter 

the  time  or  ken, 
There  never  was  separate  heart-beat  in  all  the  races 

of  men ! 

But  no  account  of  John  Boyle  O'Reilly 
would  be  complete  that  failed  to  recognize 
his  religious  character.  In  this  he  occupied 
a  peculiar  place  among  literary  men  in  an 
age  that  is  sometimes  called  agnostic  and 
irreverent.  His  religion  was  an  ever  present 
reality,  pervading  his  whole  being,  not  as  is 
often  the  case,  even  with  church  members, 
something  to  be  kept  in  the  background  of 
one's  life  and  to  be  apologized  for  to  his 
friends.  Wherever  he  went,  he  walked,  con- 
sciously and  with  reverent  steps  in  the  great 
temple  of  the  everliving  and  omnipresent 
God.  The  spiritual  element  of  the  universe 
no  more  needed  demonstration  than  the  air 
or  the  sunlight.  His  faith  was  so  lofty  and 
clear  that  he  could  affirm  with  St.  Paul, 
1 '  the  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal ; 
but  the  things  which  are  not  seen  are  eter- 


68  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

nal. ' '  With  every  fibre  of  his  being  he  was 
a  Roman  Catholic.  Why  should  he  not  be  ? 
Not  only  was  he  born  and  reared  in  the  Cath- 
olic Church,  so  that  her  traditions  and  his- 
tory were  interwoven  with  every  thread  of 
his  conscious  being,  but  she  touched  him 
gently  and  with  irresistible  force  on  the  bet- 
ter and  more  sensitive  side  of  his  nature  by 
her  artistic  creations;  her  stately  and  gor- 
geous ritual;  her  noble  and  devoted  priest- 
hood; her  orderly  and  powerful  administra- 
tion; her  countless  and  inexhaustible  philan- 
thropies; her  vast  and  world-wide  fellowship 
and  communion,  and  her  clear  and  unwaver- 
ing answer  to  all  the  deeper  questions  of  the 
soul. 

Yet  I  am  constrained  to  say  that  he  was 
more  than  a  Catholic.  No  single  name,  how- 
ever venerable  and  comprehensive  ;  no  label, 
however  broadly  and  carefully  phrased,  could 
adequately  describe  that  subtile  and  elastic 
quality  of  soul  which  we  call  his  religion. 
By  a  strange  and  unerring  instinct  his  mind, 
with  the  swiftness  of  light,  seized  the  inher- 
ent and  essential  truth  which  forever  defines 
the  relation  between  the  human  soul  and 
God.  He  saw  that  the  quality  of  men's  faith 
is  not  determined  by  the  form  in  which  it  is 


ORATION  69 

expressed.  Oh,  how  he  tried  to  overcome 
and  destroy  the  false  issue  which  for  a  quar- 
ter of  a  millennium  England  had  been  trying 
to  raise  between  Protestants  and  Catholics  in 
Ireland !  Living  in  constant  daily  fellow- 
ship with  the  sons  of  Pilgrims  and  Puritans — 
men  who  came  hither  hating  the  Papacy  as 
the  instrument  of  Satan — he  saw  the  serenity 
and  beauty  of  their  piety,  and  that  they  were 
the  very  elect  of  God  for  the  more  perfect  es- 
tablishment of  his  kingdom  among  men. 

Not  even  Longfellow  could  more  truly  say 
.  than  he  that 
God  had  sifted  three  kingdoms  to  find  the  wheat 

for  this  planting, 

And  then  had  sifted  the  wheat  as  the  living  seed  of 
the  nation. 

He  perceived  that  there  is  more  than  one 
way  into  the  heavenly  presence.  The  poor 
heathen  mother  pressing  her  babe  for  a  mo- 
ment to  her  breast  in  agonized  affection  before 
she  casts  it  to  the  crocodiles  to  appease  the 
vengence  of  her  deity,  the  minister  of  a  Prot- 
estant conventicle  preaching  in  harsh  and 
strident  tones  a  divisive  gospel,  and  the  in- 
different, yet  gently  charitable  sceptic,  can 

all  present  an  offering  that 

may  rise 
To  heaven  and  find  acceptance  there, 


70  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

no  less  than  he  whose  petition  is  borne  up- 
ward on  clouds  of  incense  that  float  from 
censers  swung  by  priestly  hands  before  ca- 
thedral altars.  This  clear-eyed,  tender, 
transcendent  and  all-comprehending  faith  was 
the  solvent  in  which  provincialism,  prejudice, 
bigotry  and  vindictiveness  vanished  utterly 
and  forever. 

Such  in  my  poor  and  fragmentary  speech 
was  the  man  whose  monument  we  have 
reared — the  broadest-minded  and  most  ac- 
complished Irishman  since  Kdmund  Burke; 
one  of  the  rare  and  transparent  souls  to  whom, 
out  of  all  the  races,  the  last  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  has  decreed  an  immortality  of 
fame.  We  place  him  here  in  our  great  Val- 
halla. The  venerable  Puritan  founders  of  this 
glorious  Commonwealth,  the  mighty  leaders  of 
the  revolutionary  epoch,  the  soldiers  whose 
blood  moistened  and  rendered  sacred  forever 
the  soil  of  Bunker  Hill,  the  matchless  orators 
and  heroes  of  the  anti-slavery  reform,  the 
nameless  hosts  who  with  the  first  echoes  of 
Sumpter's  guns  grasped  their  muskets,  and 
marched  to  the  defense  of  the  Republic,  must 
all  lie  a  little  closer  in  their  graves  to  make 
room  for  this  lover  of  mankind. 

Here  we   set  his   memorial  in  the  public 


ORATION  71 

square,  embellished  with  all  the  grace  and 
beauty  that  art  can  bestow.  L,et  those  who 
go  swarming  past  it  day  after  day,  fleeing 
from  the  dust  and  turmoil  of  the  city,  seeking 
the  fields  and  woods  beyond,  turn  their  eyes 
hither  and  recall  the  happy-hearted,  sunny 
soul,  to  whom  the  song  of  birds  and  the  noise 
of  running  waters  were  ever  like  angels' 
voices  speaking  of  paradise.  L,et  the  dis- 
heartened reformer  pause  here  for  a  moment 
and  hear  him  say,  as  it  were  out  of  the  open 
heavens : — 

I  know 

That  when  God  gives  us  the  clearest  light, 
He  does  not  touch  our  eyes  with  love,  but  sorrow. 

Let  the  hunted  fugitive,  speaking  in  an 
alien  tongue,  or  our  English  speech  with  an 
alien  accent,  set  down  his  knapsack  beside 
these  stones,  and,  remembering  the  welcome 
which  America  gave  to  this  stranger,  be 
assured  that  here  there  is  room  for  honest 
work  and  patriotic  effort  whether  men  are  na- 
tive to  the  soil  or  foreign  born.  L,et  him  who 
would  serve  his  country  by  pen,  or  speech 
or  sword,  look  at  these  symbols  in  bronze, 
and  find  his  patriotism  renewed.  Let  the 
children  of  the  poor,  as  they  behold  this 
monument,  be  reminded  that  it  is  neither 


72  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

wealth  nor  station  but  honorable  service  that 
secures  for  men  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
affection  and  renown.  L,et  the  high-bred 
youth  of  the  great  city  who  may  be  tempted 
to  regard  with  scorn  the  poor  and  lowly, 
pause  and  listen  before  this  noble  pile,  and 
he  will  learn  the  lesson  which  the  rich  must 
learn  for  safety,  that 

The  bluest  blood  is  putrid  blood, 
The  people's  blood  is  red. 


ADDRESS 

AT  A  DINNER  COMPLIMENTARY  TO    EDWARD    Iv. 
PIERCE,  DECEMBER  29,  1894. 

MR.  CHAIRMAN, — It  is  certainly  a  distin- 
guished honor  and  privilege  to  be  asked  to 
speak  in  such  a  presence  and  on  such  an 
occasion  as  this,  though  I  must  confess  the 
call  is  wholly  unexpected.  I  came  into  the 
room  almost  at  the  end  of  the  procession,  and 
sat  down  very  humbly,  and  ate  my  dinner  in 
peace,  greatly  enjoying  the  conversation  of 
my  neighbors.  The  dinner  was  nearly  over 
before  I  was  informed,  much  to  my  surprise, 
that  you  had  placed  my  name  in  the  list  of 
victims.  But  I  suppose  in  obedience  to  your 
summons  I  must  give  an  account  of  my  pres- 
ence here,  and  I  assure  you  I  do  it  very 
cheerfully.  A  number  of  motives  have  com- 
bined to  draw  me  into  this  company  to-day. 
First  and  foremost  of  all  let  me  say,  that  I 
have  come  prompted  by  my  long  friendship 
and  high  regard  for  the  gentleman  to  whom 
this  meeting  is  a  most  just  and  worthy  com- 
pliment. I  have  known  him  from  my  very 
early  boyhood.  I  am  indebted  to  him  for 


74  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

favors  rendered  in  my  young  manhood.  He 
and  I  were  born  in  the  same  town,  and  I 
come,  therefore,  as  a  loyal  son  of  old  Stough- 
ton  to  rejoice  in  one  of  the  fairest  and  noblest 
products  of  that  ancient  town,  to  join  with 
you  in  the  acclaim  which  is  due  to  his  achieve- 
ments, to  bask  in  the  sunlight  of  his  fame, 
and  to  appropriate  some  of  the  reflected  glory 
of  his  life. 

I  am  drawn  hither  also  by  the  magic  name 
of  Charles  Sumner.  That  is  one  of  the 
charms  that  I  can  never  resist.  The  person- 
ality of  Sumner  fired  my  youthful  enthusiasm 
as  no  other  human  being  ever  did  ;  it  called 
forth  all  the  admiration  of  my  mature  man- 
hood ;  and  to  this  hour  it  is  as  potent  as  ever 
to  rouse  and  quicken.  I  have  sometimes 
thought  that  if  I  were  awakened  in  the  middle 
of  the  night  and  summoned  to  speak  on  his 
life  and  services,  I  should  not  fail  or  falter. 
But  somehow  this  occasion  seems  to  take 
away  my  power  of  utterance.  This  company 
of  distinguished  men,  the  renowned  and 
graceful  orators  who  have  preceded  me,  have 
rendered  me  nearly  speechless. 

The  hour  is  late,  sir,  and  I  will  take  time 
for  only  a  single  word.  That  word  must  bear 
directly  upon  the  significance  of  this  banquet. 


ADDRESS   AT   A   DINNER  75 

Why  are  we  here  ?  What  is  the  spell  that 
holds  us  ?  I  have  asked  myself  what  it  is  in 
the  character  of  Sumner  that  brings  together, 
twenty  years  after  his  death,  such  an  assem- 
blage of  his  admirers  and  followers  ?  Is  there 
another  civilian  in  our  American  history, 
Abraham  Lincoln  alone  excepted,  who  could 
call  forth  such  a  tribute  to  his  worth  and 
fame  ?  Could  even  the  great  Webster  him- 
self ?  We  have  been  reminded  recently  of 
the  merits  and  achievements  of  that  mighty 
champion  of  the  Union  and  expounder  of  the 
Constitution.  I  have  read,  Mr.  Chairman, — 
every  gentleman  in  this  room  has  read  with  a 
thrill  of  admiration, — your  eloquent  eulogy 
in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  upon  the 
career  of  the  majestic  and  peerless  statesman 
who  for  so  many  years  stood  before  the  civil- 
ized world  as  the  representative  and  type  of 
all  that  is  highest  and  noblest  in  this  Ameri- 
can Republic.  For  myself  I  observed  with 
delight  the  fine  analysis  of  your  speech,  the 
accurate  description  and  careful  weighing  of 
the  wonderful  powers  of  that  wonderful  man  ; 
above  all,  the  portrayal  of  the  grounds  on 
which  for  more  than  a  generation  he  was  held 
almost  as  an  idol  in  Massachusetts.  It  was  a 
satisfaction  to  me  also  to  note  how,  with  un- 


76  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

flinching  courage  and  perfect  fidelity  to  truth, 
you  showed  why,  after  all  that  idolatry,  the 
hearts  of  the  people  fell  away  from  him  as  if 
he  had  done  some  sacrilegious  and  evil  thing, 
and  left  him  to  oblivion,  ignominy,  and  death. 
It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  your  speech 
had  a  deeper  meaning  than  appears  to  the 
casual  reader.  It  ought  to  be  said  here 
that  in  that  speech  in  which  you  have 
sketched  so  profoundly  alike  the  triumph 
and  failure  of  Daniel  Webster,  you  have  as- 
signed the  real  reason  why  in  the  same  hour 
that  he  was  rejected  Massachusetts  turned,  as 
if  under  the  influence  of  a  mighty  loadstone,  to 
the  imperial  personality  of  Charles  Sumner  ; 
why  it  followed  his  leadership,  not  only  in 
life,  but  follows  it  in  death,  and  will  follow  it 
so  long  as  the  life-blood  courses  in  the  veins 
of  her  people.  No  public  man  was  ever  more 
ardently  loved  or  more  completely  trusted. 
Both  the  love  and  trust  were  evoked  by  the 
moral  grandeur  of  his  life.  The  people  fol- 
lowed his  standard  because  he  believed  in 
holding  governments  to  the  eternal  and  un- 
changeable law  of  right ;  because  he  was  true 
to  the  moral  principles  on  which  our  beloved 
Commonwealth  is  founded  ;  because  he  had 
lofty  ideals,  and  never  wavered  in  his  devo- 


ADDRESS   AT   A    DINNER  77 

tion  to  them ;  because  he  walked  reverently 
and  loyally  in  the  steps  of  the  Pilgrims  and 
Puritans,  who,  in  the  fear  of  God  and  the  love 
of  man,  set  up  here  in  this  western  wilderness 
a  nation  whose  foundation  stones  are  human 
equality,  freedom,  and  justice. 

This,  moreover,  is  the  quality  in  the  char- 
acters and  offices  of  men  in  public  life  that 
abides.  Other  qualities  shift  and  fluctuate, 
but  this  remains  the  same.  Other  qualities 
may  dazzle  and  even  dominate  for  a  season, 
but  this  never  loses  its  potency,  but  even 
grows  stronger  as  time  goes  on.  Not  long 
ago  Dr.  Edward  Everett  Hale  told  me  of  an 
address  which  he  gave  at  Brown  University, 
in  which,  of  set  purpose,  he  drew  the  picture 
of  two  men.  One  was  of  the  man  who,  when 
he  rose  in  his  place  to  speak  in  the  House, 
emptied  the  Senate ;  and  who,  when  he  rose 
to  speak  in  the  Senate,  emptied  the  House. 

The  other  was  the  picture  of  the  great  man 
who  put  the  impress  of  his  life  on  Brown  Uni- 
versity. He  told  me  that  when  he  had  fin- 
ished and  stepped  down  from  the  platform,  men 
born  in  Rhode  Island,  who  were  the  contempo- 
raries of  the  man  described,  came  to  him  and 
asked  him  whom  he  meant  by  the  man,  who, 
when  he  was  a  representative  and  rose  to  speak 


78  OCCASIONAL,   ADDRESSES 

in  the  House,  emptied  the  Senate,  and  when  he 
was  a  senator  and  rose  to  speak,  emptied  the 
House, — so  completely  had  the  memory  and 
tradition  of  Tristam  B urges  faded  from  men's 
minds.  The  brilliant  genius,  the  biting  sar- 
casm, the  eloquent  speech  had  not  sufficed  to 
preserve  him  from  oblivion.  But  there  was 
no  doubt  about  the  other  man.  Whoever 
walks  the  streets  of  Providence  to-day,  who- 
ever shall  walk  them  for  generations  to  come, 
will  recognize  Francis  Wayland  as  a  living 
and  abiding  presence.  It  is  so  everywhere. 
Brilliancy  of  intellect,  even  commanding 
genius,  cannot  keep  men  alive.  Moral  power 
alone  abides.  Our  ancestors  sleep  under  the 
sod  ;  the  men  who  came  in  that  bitter  winter 
and  made  the  settlement  of  Plymouth  that 
they  might  '  *  keep  their  names  and  nation  ' ' 
and  ' '  give  their  children  such  an  education 
as  they  themselves  had  received ; ' '  the  men 
who  followed  in  their  steps  and  settled  here 
in  Boston  and  the  adjoining  territory ;  the 
men  who  struggled  and  wrought  for  good 
government  and  pure  morals  in  the  Colony 
and  Province  of  Massachusetts ;  the  great 
men,  represented  in  their  descendants  at  this 
table  to-day,  who  put  the  quality  and  stamp 
of  their  peerless  characters  into  the  Constitu- 


ADDRESS   AT   A   DINNER  79 

tion  and  civil  order  of  this  Commonwealth, 
and  whose  names  are  an  inspiration  to  youth 
and  a  guide  to  the  people,  and  will  be  to  the 
end  of  time, — are  all  of  them  mouldering  in 
their  graves.  Yet  they  are  still  alive,  and 
never  were  they  so  potent  in  their  activity  as 
now.  They  walk  abroad ;  they  speak  with 
the  living  voice  ;  we  see  them  as  we  could 
not  see  them  in  the  flesh,  and  they  make  to 
us  and  to  all  men  an  irresistible  appeal. 

Some  men  we  know  were  impatient  with 
what  they  called  the  extreme  views  and  action 
of  Charles  Sumner.  Not  long  before  he  died 
I  spent  a  few  weeks  in  Washington.  While 
sitting  in  the  gallery  of  the  Senate  I  saw  that 
whenever  he  rose  to  urge  his  Civil  Rights  Bill, 
Senators  in  their  impatience  would  spring 
from  their  seats,  wheel  round  and  rush  into 
the  cloak-rooms,  leaving  him  to  make  his 
speech  almost  alone  to  the  President  of  the 
Senate.  He  seemed  to  be  regarded  with 
something  akin  to  hatred.  At  least,  men 
could  not  conceal  their  indignation;  some 
even  treated  him  with  contempt  when  he  tried 
to  address  them  from  the  high  moral  plane  of 
his  convictions  concerning  freedom  and  equal- 
ity. In  a  short  time  he  died,  with  the  words 
"Take  care  of  my  Civil  Rights  Bill"  trem- 


8O  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

bling  on  his  lips.  Then  what  a  change  took 
place  !  Around  his  open  grave  men  forgot 
their  animosities  ;  every  bitter  epithet  was 
recalled ;  the  tumult  of  controversy  was 
hushed ;  strife  and  hatred  vanished  away ; 
the  tenderest  and  most  beautiful  tributes  to 
his  memory  were  from  those  who  had  been 
his  life-long  enemies.  And  the  Civil  Rights 
Bill;  what  of  that  ?  The  formal  thing  which 
bore  that  name  dropped  into  "inocuous  desue- 
tude." But  the  '  'living  creature"  that  ani- 
mated it,  the  spirit  that  called  it  forth,  was 
taken  up  instantly  into  the  conscience  and 
heart  alike  of  America  and  of  the  whole  civil- 
ized world.  To-day  it  is  no  longer  a  question 
whether  the  negro  shall  have  civil  rights. 
Civil  rights  are  accorded  to  all  men,  without 
distinction  of  race  or  color,  by  virtue  of  their 
manhood. 

It  is  a  great  thing,  a  rare  privilege,  to  have 
been  the  contemporaries  and  followers  of  such 
a  man.  A  far  greater  privilege  it  must  have 
been  for  our  friend  to  have  walked  by  his  side, 
enjoyed  his  friendship,  shared  his  counsels, 
received  his  confidence,  won  his  affection, 
gathered  up  and  put  together  the  materials 
which  will  make  both  for  the  great  Senator 
himself  and  his  biographer  an  imperishable 


ADDRESS   AT  A   DINNER  8 1 

memorial.  I  congratulate  Mr.  Pierce  on  his 
noble  achievement.  I  rejoice  for  the  memory 
of  Sumner,  that  the  mighty  part  which  he 
performed  in  the  most  important  epoch  of  the 
Republic  has  had  so  just  and  faithful  and  lov- 
ing a  chronicler. 


ADDRESS 

AT  THE  MEMORIAL  SERVICE  TO  DR.  A.  A.  MINER, 
IN  THE  COLUMBUS  AVE.  CHURCH,  Nov.  10,  1895 


We  are  here  to-night  to  indulge  in  affec- 
tionate and  grateful  reminiscence  of  a  man 
who  had  more  sides  to  his  character  and  ex- 
erted a  wider  and  more  varied  influence  than 
almost  any  man  who  has  lived  in  Boston  dur- 
ing the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
To  say  that  a  man  is  great  in  a  particular  line 
to  which  he  has  devoted  the  larger  part  of  his 
time  and  on  which  he  has  laid  the  emphasis  of 
his  life,  and  that  he  has  maintained  his  pre- 
eminence in  that  line  throughout,  is  praise 
enough.  We  do  not  expect  a  preacher  to  be 
a  financier,  any  more  than  we  look  for  high 
literary  gifts  and  attainments  in  one  who  may 
be  a  very  potent  factor  in  the  financial  circles 
of  a  great  city.  But  Dr.  Miner  was  great 
in  more  than  a  single  department  of  effort. 
He  was  a  great  preacher,  holding  a  foremost 
place  in  his  Boston  pulpit  for  more  than 
forty  years  ;  and  he  was  very  nearly  an  ideal 
pastor.  But  he  was  also  an  orator  almost 
without  a  peer  among  the  great  public  speak- 


DR.  A.  A.  MINER  83 

ers  of  his  time.  He  was  a  statesman  who, 
without  holding  public  office,  has  done  as 
much  to  shape  the  legislation  of  the  Common- 
wealth in  things  relating  to  its  moral  and 
social  welfare  as  any  senator  or  representative 
who  has  sat  under  the  gilded  dome  during 
the  whole  period  of  his  activity.  He  was  a 
philanthropist  whose  ear  caught  from  afar 
the  cry  of  the  oppressed  and  down-trodden, 
and  to  whom  the  appeal  of  the  poor  and 
lowly  was  never  made  in  vain.  He  was  a 
reformer  as  earnest  and  relentless  in  his  de- 
nunciation of  wrong  as  Elijah  or  John  the 
Baptist ;  and  he  was  a  business  man  of  pru- 
dence and  sagacity. 

But  this  does  not  exhaust  the  catalogue  of 
things  in  which  he  was  truly  great.  After 
his  work  as  a  Christian  minister,  his  work  in 
the  field  of  education  was  the  greatest  and 
most  enduring. 

Having  had  in  early  life  a  successful  experi- 
ence as  a  teacher  he  took  hold  of  this  subject 
with  something  of  the  knowledge  of  an  expert, 
and  with  that  intelligent  enthusiasm  which 
only  they  can  feel  whose  interest  has  been 
roused  by  actual  contact  with  young  and 
ardent  minds.  Throughout  his  public  career 
he  was  intensely  devoted  to  the  welfare  and 


84  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

progress  of  the  public  schools.  The  stealthy 
approach  of  old  age  marked  no  abatement  of 
his  desire  that  the  schools  of  the  state  and 
nation  should  be  kept  free  from  contamina- 
tion or  destructive  influences  and  that  they 
should  be  the  disseminators  of  a  pure  and 
wholesome  knowledge  and  the  nurseries  of 
sound  and  noble  culture.  During  the  earlier 
part  of  his  ministry  in  Boston  he  was  fre- 
quently called  upon  to  address  teachers'  in- 
stitutes and  other  similar  bodies  on  educa- 
tional themes.  He  took  thus  a  prominent 
part  in  the  discussion  of  the  problems  that 
were  up  for  solution  at  that  time,  and  contrib- 
uted in  a  substantial  way,  by  the  vigor, 
ability,  and  soundness  of  his  views  to  the  im- 
portant educational  movements  which  followed 
closely  in  the  footsteps  of  Horace  Mann. 
I/ater  he  was  appointed  a  member  of  the 
State  Board  of  Education,  an  office  which,  by 
repeated  reappointments,  he  held  Continuously 
for  twenty  years.  Here,  for  the  most  part, 
almost  to  the  completion  of  his  term  of  ser- 
vice, he  exerted  a  commanding  influence 
among  his  associates,  having  no  subordinate 
or  incidental  share  in  the  supervision  and  di- 
rection of  the  normal  schools,  and  in  shaping 
the  educational  policy  of  the  State.  It  is  not 


DR.  A.  A.  MINER  85 

too  much  to  say  that  the  Normal  Art  School  is 
largely  his  creation.  If  the  idea  did  not  first 
originate  with  him,  he  took  it  up  with  intelli- 
gence and  zeal,  and  carried  it  forward  to  a 
practical  result.  The  beneficent  work  accom- 
plished by  that  School,  and  the  large  place  it 
has  come  to  fill  in  our  educational  organiza- 
tion, have  fully  justified  the  undertaking. 
It  is  therefore,  in  an  important  sense,  his 
monument ;  and  if  he  had  done  no  other  not- 
able public  work,  this  alone  would  have  en- 
titled him  to  the  gratitude  of  his  fellow-citi- 
zens. I  might  enlarge  upon  these  phases  of 
Dr.  Miner's  educational  activity.  The  theme 
is  an  attractive  one,  and  there  is  much  that 
might  be  said  with  profit  concerning  it.  If 
the  history  of  public  education  in  Massachu- 
setts within  this  period  is  ever  written,  the 
people  of  the  State  will  be  surprised  to  learn 
how  grand  are  the  proportions  of  Dr.  Miner's 
work  for  the  progress  of  human  enlighten- 
ment through  the  public  schools. 

In  all  this,  however,  he  was  only  walking 
in  a  by-path.  The  one  educational  interest 
which  towered  above  every  other  and  drew 
forth  the  best  that  was  in  him  was  Tufts 
College.  When  this  enterprise  was  first 
broached,  Dr.  Miner  was  a  very  young  man, 


86  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

— too  young,  indeed,  to  have  been  an  influ- 
ential factor  in  it.  Sometimes  the  very 
inception  of  Tufts  College  is  attributed  to 
him.  But  this  is  a  mistake.  Other  forces 
were  at  work  before  he  had  assumed  the  most 
conspicuous  place  of  leadership  in  the  Uni- 
versalist  Church.  We  must  not  forget  that 
away  back  in  the  early  forties,  and  even  be- 
fore, our  venerable  and  beloved  Dr.  Sawyer 
was  preaching  the  gospel  of  education,  and 
urging  Universalists,  under  their  own  pat- 
ronage and  control,  to  build  and  endow 
schools  and  colleges.  This  agitation  bore  its 
legitimate  fruit.  His  appeals  were  responded 
to  by  Dr.  Ballou,  Otis  A.  Skinner,  and  other 
men,  both  clerical  and  lay,  of  influence  and 
power.  The  movement  for  the  establishment 
of  a  college  took  definite  shape  at  the  session 
of  the  Universalist  General  Convention  in 
New  York  in  1847.  But  no  sooner  was  the 
scheme  fairly  outlined  than  it  found  Dr. 
Miner  ready  to  accept  and  champion  it. 
From  that  hour  on  he  became  its  most  con- 
spicuous, devoted,  and  efficient  friend. 
Without  a  dissenting  voice  I  suppose  we 
shall  all  say  that  it  is  largely  due  to  his 
efforts,  that  what  must  have  seemed  to  many 
a  doubtful  undertaking  then,  has  become  a 


DR.  A.  A.  MINER  87 

great  and  flourishing  institution,  full  of  vigor 
and  vitality,  and  giving  ample  evidence 
of  abundant  and  abiding  prosperity  and 
progress.  Time  would  fail  me  were  I  to 
attempt  to  give  even  a  complete  outline  of 
the  ways  in  which  Dr.  Miner  served  Tufts 
College.  It  is  enough  to  say,  perhaps,  that 
the  institution  entered  into  his  soul  and  took 
possession  of  his  whole  being.  No  other  in- 
terest had  precedence  of  it.  No  other  work 
called  forth  so  much  of  his  energy.  No  other 
object  of  whatever  name  or  nature  stood 
higher  in  his  affections  ;  and  his  unwavering 
loyalty  and  ardent  devotion  to  it,  and  his  de- 
termination to  serve  it  by  every  power  he 
possessed,  followed  him  to  the  grave.  His 
will,  like  Caesar's  testament,  is  the  witness 
of  a  love  which  death  could  not  quench. 

Though  I  cannot  give  here  and  now  a  full 
account  of  his  varied  and  remarkable  service 
to  the  College,  there  are  two  or  three  particu- 
lars which  I  must  not  omit  to  mention. 

His  service  on  the  material  side  of  the  Col- 
lege was  great.  His  advocacy  of  it  inspired 
confidence  in  it  at  once.  The  effect  upon  the 
wealthy  members  of  his  own  parish  was 
almost  electric.  Under  his  inspiring  counsels 
they  were  led  immediately  to  give  the  means 


88  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

that  was  necessary  to  maintain  the  infant 
institution,  and  their  benefactions  steadily 
increased,  until  at  length  Silvanus  Packard 
was  induced  to  make  the  College  his  heir,  be- 
queathing to  it  his  whole  fortune.  Oliver 
Dean  was  led  not  only  to  give  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars  to  the  College,  but  to  devote 
the  remainder  of  his  possessions  to  the  found- 
ing of  a  school  whose  primary  object  should 
be  the  fitting  of  students  for  it.  Thomas  A. 
Goddard  was  his  faithful  lieutenant,  paying 
reverent  heed  to  his  wise  suggestions,  giving 
of  his  substance  constantly  and  with  a  liberal 
hand.  Indeed,  no  man  will  ever  know  the 
extent  of  his  generosity,  which  was  wholly 
without  ostentation,  and  out  of  an  affection 
as  pure  and  unselfish  as  man  ever  cherished 
for  a  noble  cause.  Others  followed  with 
equal  loyalty,  though  at  a  somewhat  slower 
pace.  Some  of  us  can  remember  the  remark- 
able, and,  at  that  time,  almost  unprecedented 
collection,  in  the  old  School  Street  Church  of 
sixteen  thousand  dollars  for  the  College. 

Nor  was  it  only  his  own  parishioners  whom 
he  filled  with  confidence  in  this  worthy  enter- 
prise. His  commanding  talents,  sound  judg- 
ment, and  rare  administrative  ability  made 
men  who  were  outside  his  parish  and  beyond 


DR.  A.  A.  MINER  89 

the  limits  of  the  Universalist  Church  feel 
that  the  future  of  the  College  was  assured, 
and  that  it  was  a  fitting  object  on  which  to 
bestow  their  gifts.  When  Dr.  William  J. 
Walker  resolved  to  devote  the  whole  of  his 
vast  accumulations  to  education,  and  pro- 
posed to  divide  them  among  several  of  the 
institutions  of  the  State,  the  friends  of  Tufts 
College  were  delighted  to  learn  that  their  in- 
stitution, which  possessed  little  more  than  a 
few  barren  acres  of  ground  in  Medford  and 
Somerville,  with  buildings  that  scarcely  more 
than  served  to  emphasize  its  poverty,  was  one 
of  them.  It  turned  out,  too,  to  their  great 
gratification,  that  Dr.  Miner  was  the  man 
in  whom  Dr.  Walker  had  the  highest  confi- 
dence. Indeed,  the  presidents  of  the  other 
Colleges  with  spontaneous  unanimity  turned  to 
Dr.  Miner  as  the  one  best  fitted  among  them 
all  to  get  on  amicably  with  that  peculiar 
gentleman,  whose  life,  in  spite  of  his  profess- 
ional eminence  and  his  business  triumphs, 
had  been  filled  with  turmoil  and  trouble. 
Nor  did  he  fail  to  meet  the  full  measure  of  his 
responsibility.  With  that  tactful  urbanity 
which  sometimes  with  him  amounted  almost 
to  genius,  he  accommodated  himself  to  all  the 
whims  of  the  dying  millionaire.  If  he  were 


9O  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

bidden  to  be  in  his  chamber  at  two  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  he  was  there,  as  clear  and  fresh 
and  ready  for  business  as  if  it  were  high 
noon.  Thus,  little  by  little,  because  Dr. 
Miner  stood  sponsor  for  it,  the  College  won 
its  way  to  the  thoughtful  regard  of  business 
men. 

Dr.  Miner's  service  to  the  College  in  the 
legislative  counsels  of  the  State  was  almost 
beyond  computation.  It  was  his  skilful  dip- 
lomacy and  his  wide  knowledge  of  and 
influence  with  public  men  that  won  from  a 
reluctant  Legislature  a  donation  of  fifty  thous- 
and dollars  from  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of 
the  Back  Bay  lands,  thus  taking  the  first  step 
towards  putting  the  institution  in  a  position 
of  independence  and  on  a  sound  financial 
basis.  The  marvellous  tide  of  material  bene- 
factions, almost  unparalled  in  the  history  of 
New  England  colleges,  has  flowed  in  through 
the  gateway  thus  opened. 

The  original  charter  of  the  College  au- 
thorized the  conferring  of  all  the  degrees 
usually  given  by  colleges  ' '  except  medical 
degrees."  Without  any  distinct  purpose  of 
founding  a  medical  school,  or  any  immediate 
desire  to  confer  these  degrees,  Dr.  Miner  felt 
that  this  was  a  discrimination  that  ought  not 


DR.  A.  A.  MINER  91 

to  exist,  and  so,  almost  alone,  he  went  before 
the  Legislature,  and  in  spite  of  the  combined 
opposition  of  Harvard  College  and  nearly  the 
entire  medical  faculty  of  Massachusetts,  se- 
cured its  removal.  Truly  "other  men  have 
labored,  and  we  are  entered  into  their  labors." 
Our  young  medical  school,  now  scarcely  three 
years  old,  yet  with  an  enrolment  of  more 
than  one  hundred  and  fifty  students,  estab- 
lished with  the  cordial  approval  of  men  emi- 
nent in  the  medical  profession  throughout 
New  England,  even  of  men  upon  the  Medical 
faculty  of  Harvard  University,  is  the  proof  of 
the  wisdom  and  foresight  of  this  prudent 
friend  of  the  College. 

The  death  of  Hosea  Ballou,  2d,  D.D.,  in 
the  spring  of  1861,  left  the  College  without  a 
responsible  head.  The  trustees  and  friends  of 
the  institution  were  in  dismay.  They  did  not 
know  where  to  turn  for  a  suitable  successor 
to  the  great  and  wise  scholar  who  had  been  so 
successful  in  launching  this  new  experiment 
with  a  people  who  had  up  to  that  time  made 
few  achievements  in  the  higher  learning.  It 
seemed  as  if  a  crisis  had  been  reached,  and 
there  were  those  who  felt  very  dubious  con- 
cerning the  future.  The  people,  however, 
were  not  long  in  doubt.  The  trustees,  after 


92  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

a  little  fruitless  searching  in  most  unpromis- 
ing fields,  turned  with  one  consent  to  the 
man  who  had  rendered  such  conspicuous  and 
efficient  aid  in  other  ways,  and  designated 
him  to  assume  the  headship  of  the  College. 
This  was  a  new  and  difficult  role  for  one  to 
assume  who  had  not  even  had  the  advantage 
of  a  college  education  himself.  But  Dr. 
Miner  took  it  up  as  naturally  and  gracefully 
as  if  he  had  been  predestined  from  the  found- 
ation of  the  world  to  be  a  college  president. 
He  did  not  devote  his  whole  time  to  the  office, 
nor  even  go  to  the  College  to  reside.  But  it 
was  not  long  before  he  was  familiar  with 
every  detail  of  its  work,  and  made  his  strong 
hand  felt  in  its  administration.  He  became, 
moreover,  before  the  world  the  conspicuous 
and  shining  exponent  of  its  intellectual  aims 
and  spirit.  No  man  could  look  at  him  and 
feel  that  the  College  under  his  control  could 
lead  an  inferior  intellectual  life.  » 

Dr.  Miner  has  been  called  narrow.  But 
those  who  say  that  of  him  only  evince 
their  own  ignorance  of  the  real  nature  of 
the  man.  His  mind  displayed  the  utmost 
catholicity,  and  responded  instantly  to  the 
intellectual  demands  of  the  situation  and  the 
times.  True,  his  eye  did  not  sweep  the  en- 


DR.  A.  A.  MINER  93 

tire  horizon  all  at  once.  In  an  address  which 
he  gave  at  the  laying  of  the  corner-stone  of 
Ballou  Hall,  he  said  :  "  L,et  it  be  inscribed 
over  the  doors  of  this  College  that  no  man 
shall  go  forth  from  hence  who  is  not  versed 
in  letters  and  theology."  It  would  seem  as 
if  he  were  thinking  only  of  a  theological 
school.  But  it  was  during  his  presidency 
that  physics  was  made  a  separate  department, 
with  Professor  Dolbear  as  its  head.  He  also 
created  the  department  of  engineering.  These 
were  the  initial  measures  which  in  their  devel- 
opment have  given  the  College  such  wide  and 
high  renown  in  the  realm  of  both  theoretical 
and  applied  science.  Surely  one  who  could 
thus  overcome  all  the  prepossessions  of  his 
earlier  manhood  in  favor  of  literary  and 
theological  training  was  not  a  narrow  man. 
It  is  clear,  beyond  question,  that  he  meant 
that  the  foundations  of  the  College  should  be 
as  broad  as  the  whole  field  of  human  learning. 
Early  in  the  year  1875  circumstances  arose 
which  led  him  finally  to  resign  the  office  as 
president.  The  trustees  were  unanimous  in 
desiring  a  different  result.  They  urged  him 
by  every  consideration  at  their  command  to 
abandon  his  Boston  pulpit,  come  to  the  Col- 
lege to  reside,  and  devote  his  whole  time  to  its 


94  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

administration.  After  mature  deliberation  he 
held  fast  to  his  declination.  But  his  resig- 
nation of  the  presidency  did  not  signify  the 
slightest  abatement  of  interest  in  the  welfare 
of  the  institution.  As  a  member  of  the  board 
of  trustees,  as  chairman  of  its  executive 
committee  and  of  other  subordinate  commit- 
tees, he  labored  assiduously  for  the  prosperity 
in  other  hands  of  what  he  might,  almost 
without  impropriety,  have  regarded  as  his 
personal  perquisite.  This  is  the  more  re- 
markable because  sometimes  he  found  him- 
self in  direct  opposition  to  the  policy  of  his 
successor  and  in  direct  opposition  to  the 
views  of  all  his  associates.  Yet  in  matters 
which  I  know  he  must  have  regarded  as  of 
vital  moment,  I  never  could  detect  a  single 
trace  of  vexation  or  resentment  towards  the 
College  that  his  views  were  not  adopted.  In- 
deed I  have  known  him  to  withstand  me  almost 
to  the  point  of  ferocity  in  the  board,  and  after 
the  meeting  he  would  take  my  arm  and  walk 
up  the  street,  leaning  upon  me  as  if  I  were 
his  son,  and  conversing  with  me  in  the  most 
amicable  and  confidential  way  on  the  high 
themes  of  religion  and  the  church. 

I  think  it  may  be  affirmed  that  his  interest 
deepened   and   strengthened  in  the  cause  to 


DR.    A.    A.    MINER  95 

which  he  had  given  the  best  energies  of  his 
young  and  mature  manhood  as  time  wore  on. 
Returning  as  it  were  by  a  natural  rebound  of 
affection  to  his  earlier  regard  for  literary  and 
theological  culture,  he  made  the  splendid  do- 
nation of  Miner  Theological  Hall  to  the 
Divinity  School.  Then,  as  if  he  would  not 
be  bound  to  any  restricted  channel  of  educa- 
tional efforts,  he  sought  the  aid  of  the  Supreme 
Judicial  Court  of  Massachusetts  that  he 
might  apply  the  funds  left  in  his  hands  by  the 
will  of  the  late  Henry  B.  Pearson  to  some  of 
the  phases  of  scientific  effort  already  under- 
taken by  the  College.  The  Bromfield-Pearson 
School  is  the  result.  Finally,  by  his  last  will 
and  testament,  he  gives  the  whole  of  the 
residuary  of  his  estate  to  the  College,  the  in- 
come to  be  used  by  the  trustees  without  re- 
striction for  those  objects  which  they  deem 
most  wise.  You  will  all  agree  with  me  that 
none  but  a  great  man  could  thus  give  up  his 
official  connection  with  a  cherished  instru- 
mentality, and  still  keep,  in  spite  of  many 
disappointments  and  some  crossing  of  pur- 
poses, his  affection  ardent  and  warm  toward 
it,  and  ultimately  crown  and  seal  has  love  by 
the  noblest  benefactions. 

His  former  pupils,  not  a  few  of  whom  are 


96  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

here  to-night,  would  not  feel  that  I  had  per- 
formed my  duty  if  I  failed  to  speak  of  him  as 
a  teacher.  The  splendid  tribute  of  Dr.  Adams, 
however,  renders  the  task  nearly  superfluous. 
Dr.  Miner  belonged  to  a  type  of  college  presi- 
dents which  is  now  extinct, — a  type  which 
was  represented  by  such  men  as  Francis  Way- 
land,  James  Walker,  Theodore  D.  Woolsey, 
and  Mark  Hopkins.  They  were  men  who 
taught  not  so  much  by  their  learning  (though 
they  were  not  without  learning)  as  by  their 
personality.  I  heard  President  D  wight  of 
Yale  University  say,  not  long  since,  that  Dr. 
Woolsey  could  not  go  through  the  college 
yard  without  communicating  to  the  students 
who  saw  him  a  distinct  intellectual  impulse. 
To  no  man  in  the  world  could  this  remark  be 
applied  more  justly  than  to  Dr.  Miner.  How- 
ever he  appeared,  whether  on  foot  or  on 
horseback,  his  presence  was  majestic.  The 
man  who  saw  him  for  the  first1  time  turned 
involuntarily  and  gazed  after  him.  Even 
those  to  whom  his  goings  to  and  fro  upon  the 
street  were  familiar  often  stopped  and  looked 
upon  him  with  admiration.  To  his  own  pu- 
pils, as  he  ascended  the  hill  of  science  before 
them,  he  seemed  a  veritable  "  king  of  men." 
The  modern  college  president  is  a  curious 


DR.  A.  A.  MINER  97 

compound.  He  is  expected,  to  be  sure,  to 
know  something  of  pedagogical  subjects  and 
to  be  able  to  expound  them  to  his  own  and 
other  bodies  of  teachers.  His  time,  however, 
is  mainly  occupied  with  petty  details  of  busi- 
ness. Of  his  own  faculty  he  is  little  more  than 
the  presiding  officer,  and  the  entire  work  of 
college  administration  and  discipline  is  done 
by  act  of  the  college  parliament.  He  may  do 
some  teaching  if  he  can  find  time  for  it,  but 
he  is  quite  as  likely  to  be  found  in  the  amphi- 
theatre of  the  ball-field,  stimulating  his  pupils 
to  athletic  achievement,  as  in  the  academic 
hall,  rousing  their  minds  with  the  mighty 
themes  of  philosophy  and  duty.  Fortunately 
Dr.  Miner  was  not  cast  in  this  mould,  and 
was  not  called  to  do  his  work  under  the  con- 
ditions which  this  mould  imposes.  Wherever 
he  was,  he  was  a  masterful  spirit.  Whether 
seated  in  the  presidential  chair  among  his  as- 
sociate teachers,  or  face  to  face  with  the  under- 
graduates, every  one  was  made  to  feel  that  in 
some  just  and  profound  measure  his  will  was 
law.  In  the  class-room  it  was  not  his  expo- 
sitions of  the  text  that  most  impressed  his 
pupils,  but  rather  the  clearness  and  force  with 
which  he  grasped  ideas  and  truth.  The  bril- 
liancy and  profundity  of  his  own  thought 


98  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

drew  forth  their  intellectual  resources,  and 
set  them  to  thinking  for  themselves  on  inde- 
pendent lines.  For  this  reason  no  man  who 
ever  felt  as  a  pupil  the  inspiration  of  his  intel- 
lectual life  can  fail  to  revere  him  as  a  wise 
teacher  and  profound  thinker. 

So  his  work  goes  on,  through  the  College 
to  which  he  has  contributed  not  only  more 
variously,  but  a  greater  sum  of  things  than 
any  other  single  individual  thus  far  in  its  his- 
tory ;  through  the  departments  of  study  which 
he  created ;  through  the  noble  intellectual 
ideals  which  he  embodied,  and  through  the 
stimulus  of  his  peerless  personality.  This  is 
his  legacy  to  us.  God  help  us  to  hand  it  on 
not  only  unimpaired,  but  with  fresh  accumu- 
lations to  the  generations  that  are  to  come. 


THE  REV.   BENJAMIN  KIMBALL  RUSS 

A  TRIBUTE  GIVEN  AT  THE  UNIVERSAWST  MINIS- 
TERS' MEETING,  NOVEMBER  16,  1896 


My  acquaintance  with  Benjamin  Kimball 
Russ  began  in  the  Spring  of  1853,  at  the 
Green  Mountain  liberal  Institute  in  South 
Woodstock,  Vermont.  He  had  been  for  some 
time  a  member  of  the  school  and  I  had  just 
entered  it.  We  were  both  in  the  same  class 
preparing  for  Tufts  College,  which  we  entered 
in  the  fall  of  1856,  just  forty  years  ago.  At 
the  fitting  school  he  distinguished  himself  by 
his  faithfulness  as  a  student  and  by  many 
brilliant  and  agreeable  qualities.  In  the  win- 
ter of  1854  we  became  room-mates,  a  relation 
which  we  held  without  interruption  through- 
out our  connection  with  the  Academy  and 
until  we  left  college  in  1860.  In  all  that  long 
and  intimate  connection  I  do  not  recall  a 
harsh  or  unpleasant  word  spoken  by  either  of 
us.  I  think  this  is  somewhat  remarkable,  as 
we  were  both  very  positive  and  often  differed 
radically  in  our  opinions.  He  was  in  many 
respects  a  unique  character,  unlike  any  other 
man  whom  I  have  ever  known,  and  with 


IOO  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

many  strong  qualities  which  deserve  com- 
mendation. He  was  remarkable  even  in  his 
early  youth,  and  a  great  future  was  pre- 
dicted for  him.  Undoubtedly  he  would  have 
achieved  this  but  for  certain  peculiarities 
which  limited  him  and  held  him  in  check. 
At  the  Academy  he  was  regarded  by  both 
teachers  and  students  as  a  person  of  extra- 
ordinary natural  endowments.  These  char- 
acteristics became  more  and  more  strongly 
emphasized  in  his  college  career. 

When  we  entered  college  in  the  fall  of 
1856  we  set  up  housekeeping  in  one  of  the 
attic  chambers  of  Middle  Hall.  From  the 
day  of  our  arrival  for  more  than  a  week  a 
storm  of  extraordinary  violence  raged.  This 
storm  blew  down  the  mammoth  tent  that  had 
been  set  up  in  the  field  near  the  great  oak 
where  the  station  on  the  Boston  and  L,owell 
Railroad  now  stands,  for  a  festival  to  mark 
the  opening  of  the  college  year/  As  none  of 
our  furniture  had  arrived  we  were  compelled 
to  sleep  on  an  uncovered  mattress  on  the 
floor  of  our  room.  I  remember  a  laughable 
incident  of  our  first  year  in  the  attic.  Our 
room  was  heated  by  an  old  fashioned  Frank- 
lin coal  stove,  and  we  were  greatly  troubled 
with  gas  on  account  of  a  defect  in  the  chim- 


THE   RKV.    B.    K     SUSS. 


ney.  Benjamin  was  a  great  wag  and  loved  a 
practical  joke.  There  was  a  certain  way  of 
putting  on  the  blower  to  the  stove  that  would 
cause  the  gas  to  pour  out  into  the  room  in  a 
great  blue  flame  carrying  with  it  a  cloud  of 
dust  and  ashes.  One  day  he  sent  for  Presi- 
dent Ballou  that  he  might  complain  of  the 
draft  and  explain  the  discomfort  to  which  we 
were  subjected.  As  soon  as  the  venerable 
doctor  came  in  he  adjusted  the  blower,  and 
the  gas  came  out  covering  the  old  gentleman 
with  a  shower  of  ashes.  The  latter  turned 
with  a  start  that  was  peculiar  to  him  and  said, 
"This  will  never  do,  Mr.  Russ  ;  you  must 
get  out  of  this  room  at  once." 

Augustus  E.  Scott,  of  the  class  of  1858, 
now  residing  in  Lexington,  was  at  the  time 
of  our  entrance  a  member  of  the  junior  class, 
having  come  to  Tufts  College  from  Brown 
University  in  the  autumn  of  1855.  While 
at  Brown  Mr.  Scott  had  been  initiated  into 
the  Theta  Delta  Chi  fraternity.  Very  soon 
after  our  advent  upon  College  Hill,  he  se- 
lected Mr.  Russ,  two  others  of  the  Freshman 
class,  myself,  and  two  or  three  men  from 
the  class  of  1859  who  have  since  attained 
high  distinction  in  their  professions,  to  be- 
come the  charter  members  of  what  is  now  the 


O2  OCCAGIPNAI,   ADDRESSES 


Kappa  chapter  of  this  society.  Russ  was  a 
faithful  member  of  his  fraternity  throughout 
his  college  course  and  never  lost  his  interest 
in  it  while  he  lived. 

Our  relation  to  each  other  was  more  than 
fraternal.  It  was  one  of  those  high  friend- 
ships which  are  seldom  realized  in  this  world, 
like  the  friendship  of  David  and  Jonathan. 
We  had  no  secrets  from  each  other  ;  even 
our  most  private  confidences  we  shared  as 
if  our  identity  were  one  and  the  same.  For 
a  time  after  entering  college  his  fidelity  as  a 
student  seemed  to  warrant  for  him  the  attain- 
ment of  high  rank  in  his  class.  But  he  had 
an  enormously  large  and  active  brain  and  an 
extremely  delicate  and  frail  body.  We  used 
to  call  him  the  tadpole,  because  beginning 
with  his  head,  he  seemed  to  taper  gradually  to 
his  feet.  The  close  application  of  a  studious 
life  soon  began  to  tell  upon  his  health.  By 
the  beginning  of  his  junior  year  the  activity 
of  his  brain  developed  symptoms  that  were 
uncomfortable  and  alarming.  He  was  obliged 
more  and  more  to  relax  his  studious  effort. 
In  the  latter  part  of  his  senior  year,  he  was 
unable  to  take  the  examinations  that  would 
have  entitled  him  to  the  degree  of  Bachelor 
of  Arts,  and  he  left  college  without  it.  One 


REV.  B.  K.  RUSS  103 

of  the  highest  satisfactions  of  my  official  ex- 
perience was  the  privilege,  at  the  first  com- 
mencement over  which  I  presided,  in  1875, 
of  conferring  upon  him  extra  ordinem  this  de- 
gree. This  was  done  at  the  suggestion  and 
on  the  motion,  in  the  meeting  of  the  trustees, 
of  the  Reverend  I^ucius  R.  Paige,  D.D.,  who 
knew  Mr.  Russ  intimately  and  appreciated 
him  at  his  true  worth.  I  believe  -myself  that 
the  degree  was  richly  merited. 

Mr.  Russ  had  a  personality  that  was  irre- 
sistibly attractive.  He  was  accessible  to  all 
classes  of  students,  open,  generous  and  free. 
Every  one  who  was  in  college  with  him  will 
agree  with  me  that  he  was  the  most  popular 
man  in  the  institution.  He  was  perfectly 
democratic,  genial  and  hospitable.  Our  room 
was  the  almost  constant  resort  of  the  men,  in 
whatever  class,  who  were  inclined  to  socia- 
bility, and  often  in  the  hours  not  devoted  to 
study  it  would  be  crowded  to  suffocation, 
nearly,  with  visitors.  We  sometimes  found  it 
difficult  to  get  time  for  our  own  work  and  not 
unfrequently  had  to  turn  out  the  company  vi 
et  armis.  He  had  an  inexhaustible  fund  of 
anecdote  and  was  an  unequalled  story  teller, 
his  rare  dramatic  powers  and  his  imitative 
qualities  enabling  him  to  illustrate  a  narra- 


104  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

tive  with  all  the  grace  of  a  finished  actor. 
How  often  have  I  heard  the  exclamation 
burst  forth  from  one  and  another  admiring 
listener  :  ' '  Ben,  you  ought  to  go  on  the  stage 
You  would  equal  Warren  !  * '  He  was  a  mas- 
ter of  sarcasm  and  his  wit  was  subtle  and 
inspiring.  L,ike  Falstaff,  "he  was  not  only 
witty  in  himself,  but  the  cause  of  wit  in  other 
men."  In  argument,  also,  he  was  invincible. 
Most  of  the  discussions  of  our  time  were  of 
the  theological  order.  He  knew  the  Bible 
by  heart ;  in  the  quotation  and  marshall- 
ing of  texts  I  never  knew  but  two  masters  in 
that  art  who  could  be  put  in  the  same  cate- 
gory with  him,  and  these  were  no  lesser  per- 
sonages than  Hosea  Ballou  and  Thomas 
Whittemore. 

In  the  privacy  of  his  own  apartments  sur- 
rounded by  congenial  friends  he  had  a  mar- 
vellous fluency  of  speech,  and  when  his 
interest  in  a  subject  was  fully  kindled  he  rose 
not  unfrequently  to  the  loftiest  flights  of  elo- 
quence. Men  have  said  to  me  again  and 
again,  "if  Benjamin  could  only  bring  his 
mind  to  it  and  let  himself  out  in  public  as 
he  is  wont  to  do  in  private  with  his  friends, 
he  would  be  a  foremost  orator. ' '  Among  his 
other  attractions,  he  had  a  rich  voice  and 


THE  REV.  B.  K.  RUSS  105 

was  a  good  natural  singer.  He  was  very  fond 
of  religious  hymns  and  songs  of  the  camp- 
meeting  variety.  Often  the  company  that 
gathered  around  him  would  render  the  dormi- 
tory untenantable  to  all  who  did  not  join  with 
them,  by  the  songs  which  he  would  deacon 
off,  interspersed  with  imitations  of  the  great 
revivalists  of  the  Burchard  and  Knapp  type. 
Are  there  not  still  some  living  who  can  say, 

"  Ah,  yes,  we  can  remember  those  nights; 

For  we  spent  them  not  in  toys,  nor  lusts  nor  wine; 
But  search  of  deep  philosophy,  wit,  eloquence  and 

poesy, 

Arts  which  I  loved,  for  they,   my  friend,  were 
thine"? 

Notwithstanding  his  fondness  for  mirth  and 
jollity,  he  never  lost  his  sense  of  manhood. 
He  kept  his  proper  dignity  and  never  over- 
stepped the  bounds  of  propriety  in  anything. 
The  great  serious  purposes  of  life  dominated 
him.  He  may  be  said  to  have  been  predes- 
tined to  the  Christian  Ministry.  He  used  to 
declare  that  he  never  could  remember  the 
time,  even  in  his  earliest  childhood,  when  he 
did  not  have  that  profession  as  his  choice. 
His  entire  spiritual  nature  was  cast  in  the 
ministerial  mould.  In  spite  of  his  geniality 
and  mirthfulness,  he  was  always  serious  and 


106  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

high  minded ;  and,  without  the  slightest  sug- 
gestion of  cant,  he  was  profoundly  religious. 
I  have  never  known  a  man  to  whom  the 
spiritual  realm  was  so  much  a  reality.  His 
consciousness  of  that  seemed  to  be  just  as 
fine  and  clear  as  his  consciousness  of  temporal 
things.  Literally,  we  may  say,  he  walked 
with  God. 

He  began  preaching  immediately  upon  the 
completion  of  his  college  course.  Indeed,  I 
think  he  had  preached  somewhat  before  that. 
His  promise  was  recognized  at  once,  and  he 
had  many  flattering  invitations.  The  parish 
in  Somerville  being  vacant,  he  accepted  a  call 
to  become  its  pastor,  a  position  which  he 
held  for  twelve  years.  At  the  beginning 
of  his  ministry  there,  the  congregation  wor- 
shipped in  a  wooden  building  in  the  easterly 
section  of  the  town.  But  after  some  years 
this  building  was  destroyed  by  fire  and  the 
existing  brick  structure  on  Cross  Street  was 
erected.  Under  his  care  the  society  grew  in 
numbers  and  strength,  enjoying  a  very  high 
degree  of  prosperity.  The  congregations 
were  large,  filling  the  church  in  every  part. 
The  Sunday  School  was  almost  phenomenal 
in  size  and  interest,  a  characteristic  which  it 
has  retained  ever  since.  The  roll  of  church 


REV.    B.    K.    RUSS  107 

membership  was  larger  than  in  most  congre- 
gations of  like  magnitude.  The  people  who 
gathered  about  and  sustained  him  in  his  work 
were  among  the  most  influential  and  respect- 
able in  the  community. 

But  notwithstanding  this  prosperity  there 
came  a  time  when  he  was  conscious  of  a 
ripple  of  discontent,  and  he  was  so  sensitive 
in  his  mental  and  spiritual  organism  that  he 
could  not  work  against  an  adverse  current. 
The  parish  had  a  small  burden  of  debt  and 
some  complained  that  he  did  not  raise  it. 
But  he  was  not  a  debt  raiser  and  he  felt  him- 
self unequal  to  the  task.  Some  complained 
that  his  methods  were  stereotyped.  I  have 
alluded  to  his  timidity  and  reserve.  In  this 
he  was  almost  abnormal.  Although  he  had, 
as  everyone  who  knew  him  can  testify, 
native  extemporaneous  ability  of  a  rare 
order,  in  his  public  ministration,  I  think  he 
never  allowed  himself  to  utter  five  consecu- 
tive sentences  extemporaneously.  If  he  had 
anything  to  say,  even  to  his  Sunday  School, 
he  felt  that  he  must  have  it  written  down  be- 
fore him.  Therefore,  though  no  one  could 
complain  of  the  ability  with  which  his  pulpit 
work  was  done,  or  of  his  faithfulness  and  de- 
votion as  a  pastor,  or  of  the  dignified  relations 


108  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

which  he  sustained  to  the  community,  there 
were  those  who  felt  that  a  change  might  be 
better.  Experience  taught  them  that  they 
were  in  woeful  error. 

As  soon,  however,  as  Mr.  Russ  became 
aware  of  the  feeling  he  resigned,  and  no 
amount  of  importunity  could  have  induced 
him  to  recall  his  resignation.  Still,  to  one 
constituted  as  he  was,  it  is  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  the  step  was  heart-breaking.  I 
know  how  bitterly  he  suffered.  For  many 
years  his  dejection  and  sorrow  interfered  with 
his  mental  activity  and  prevented  him  from 
much  useful  work.  Though  his  services 
were  in  constant  request  and  he  preached 
nearly  every  Sunday,  he  could  not  bring 
himself  to  the  task  of  taking  on  the  responsi- 
bilities of  a  new  parish.  He  had  struck  his 
roots  deeply  in  Somerville,  and  he  could  not 
contemplate  the  possibility  of  life  in  any  other 
place.  Moreover,  the  home  of  which  he  had 
then  become  a  part,  was  immeasurabty 
attractive.  Immediately  on  his  going  to 
Somerville,  the  elder  Hollanders  took  him  to 
their  house  and  made  him  as  one  of  their 
sons.  Their  children  regarded  him  with  as 
much  affection  as  if  he  had  been  a  brother  of 
their  own  flesh  and  blood.  This  relation 


THE  REV.  B.  K.  RUSS  109 

continued  until  the  home  was  broken  up  by 
the  death  of  Mrs.  Hollander,  when  he  trans- 
ferred his  abode  to  the  family  of  the  oldest 
son,  Mr.  I/ouis  P.  Hollander.  Many  people 
looked  upon  him  with  a  critical  eye.  Some 
said  harsh  things  about  him.  They  called 
him  indolent.  They  said  he  was  letting 
great  powers  run  to  waste.  They  charged 
that  he  was  wanting  in  devotion  to  the  cause 
which  he  had  espoused.  But  all  tongues 
were  silenced  when  that  awful  paralysis  fell 
upon  him  like  a  thunder  bolt  out  of  heaven. 
Men  saw  then  the  ghostly  shadow  that  had 
dogged  his  footsteps  from  his  youth.  They 
knew  that  it  was  this  that  had  put  an  inex- 
orable limit  to  his  activity  and  his  powers. 

Then  it  was,  however,  that  he  nerved  him- 
self for  a  new  effort  with  a  heroism  that  I 
can  rarely  think  of  without  tears.  As  soon 
as  strength  returned  to  him  in  a  slight  degree, 
he  took  himself  at  once  to  Gorham,  New 
Hampshire,  where,  during  many  summer  va- 
cations he  had  made  friends,  and  immediately 
set  about  the  work  of  gathering  and  organ- 
izing a  parish.  At  first  his  tongue  failed  to 
respond  to  the  efforts  of  his  will  and  his 
speech  was  clouded.  He  was  unable,  even, 
to  stand  in  the  pulpit.  But  he  worked  on 


110  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 


without  complaint,  and  the  work  prospered 
in  his  hands.  The  young  were  drawn  to  him 
by  the  charm  of  his  personality  ;  the  middle 
aged  and  the  old  learned  to  love  and  venerate 
him  for  his  sincerity  and  wisdom.  Little  by 
little  the  means  were  gathered  for  the  erec- 
tion of  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  commodi- 
ous churches  to  be  found  in  a  New  England 
country  village ;  and  he  lived  there  in  the 
midst  of  his  flock,  as  truly  venerated  and  be- 
loved as  the  village  pastor  immortalized  by 
Goldsmith.  He  was  respected  and  admired 
by  the  entire  community.  The  whole  body 
of  the  clergy  for  miles  around,  Catholic  and 
Protestant  alike,  held  him  in  esteem  as  a 
Christian  brother  and  fellow  servant  of  the 
living  God.  In  view  of  the  masterly  devo- 
tion of  his  later  years  let  no  man  say  that 
Benjamin  Russ  was  indolent.  He  lived  like 
an  anchorite,  in  painstaking  and  unselfish 
consecration.  He  took  no  stipend  save  what 
was  freely  given  in  the  morning  offertory  of 
the  church.  That,  after  paying  the  expenses 
of  heating,  lighting  and  janitor's  service,  left 
but  a  pittance  for  the  simple  necessities  of  his 
daily  life.  But  he  would  rather  have  it  so. 

Two  years  ago  I  spent  a  week  with  him  in 
his  field  of  labor.     It  was  a  delight  to  witness 


REV.  B.  K.  RUSS  III 


the  honor  and  affection  in  which  he  was 
held.  I  remonstrated  with  him  and  tried  to 
induce  him  to  adopt  some  other  method  of 
raising  a  revenue  in  his  parish  that  would 
give  him  a  better  and  more  trustworthy  sup- 
port. But  he  said:  "No,  this  method  is 
according  to  my  idea,  and  I  do  not  wish 
to  change  it."  He  had  a  small  suite  of 
rooms  in  a  block  over  the  post-office  in  the 
heart  of  the  village.  Before  I  left  him,  I 
said:  "  Ben,  you  ought  not  to  live  in  this 
way.  With  your  infirmities  you  are  liable  to 
a  sudden  illness,  and  here  you  are  beyond  the 
reach  of  help  in  time  of  need."  He  turned 
to  me  with  a  smile  and  replied  :  '  '  Elmer,  I 
am  an  old  bachelor,  and  I  like  this  way  best. 
Some  night  I  shall  go  to  sleep  here  and  wake 
up  in  Heaven.  This  is  the  way  I  want  it  to 
be."  I  grasped  his  hand  and  looked  into  his 
face.  His  lip  did  not  quiver,  but  the  tears 
rolled  down  his  cheeks.  As  for  myself,  I  was 
nearly  blind  as  I  tried  to  say  farewell. 

I  have  seen  him  once  or  twice  since.  Last 
winter  he  came  to  my  house  and  we  spent  a 
day  in  delightful  reminiscence  of  the  days  of 
our  youth,  and  then  he  went  back  to  his  work 
among  the  hills.  He  seemed  so  much  stronger 
and  so  much  like  his  old  self,  that  I  felt  he 


112  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

had  yet  some  years  of  happiness  and  work. 
But  when  on  the  sixth  day  of  this  month,  the 
sad  message  was  flashed  over  the  country, 
"  The  Reverend  B.  K.  Russ  this  morning  was 
found  dead  in  his  bed, ' '  I  recalled  the  scene 
in  his  room  and  his  words,  ( '  This  is  the  way 
I  want  it  to  be." 

He  had  an  inordinate  fondness  for  attend- 
ing divine  worship.  No  inveterate  theatre- 
goer, drunk  with  the  passion  for  seeing  plays, 
ever  had  such  fondness  for  the  dramatic  art 
as  he  had  for  attending  religious  services. 
During  the  time  that  he  lived  in  Somerville, 
I  think  he  must  have  attended,  at  some  time 
or  other,  for  some  service  or  other,  nearly  every 
church  in  Boston.  Indeed,  the  most  curious 
conventicle  in  the  most  obscure  hall  he  sought 
out  and  could  tell  you  all  about  it  from  actual 
observation.  His  eyes  were  so  keen,  his 
verbal  memory  so  strong  and  accurate  and 
his  power  of  imitation  so  true  that  he  could 
reproduce  the  whole  before  the  eye  and  mind 
of  the  listener.  The  lofty  eloquence  of  the 
great  pulpit  orator  lived  and  glowed  again 
and  burnt  its  way  into  the  soul  of  the  hearer 
from  his  lips.  Tne  strange  and  often  ludi- 
crous eccentricities  of  the  uncultured  colored 
preacher  were  just  as  vividly  portrayed.  He 


THE  REV.  B.  K.  RUSS  113 

could  paint  with  equal  faithfulness  the  pecu- 
liar fervor  of  the  revivalist  and  the  graceful 
genuflexions  of  the  ritualist.  Nor  was  it  a 
mere  idle  curiosity  that  carried  him  to  so 
many  and  such  varied  services.  He  went  to 
them  impelled  by  a  mighty  instinct,  because 
he  loved  himself  to  worship  God  and  because 
he  desired  to  know  the  methods  by  which 
other  souls  found  their  way  into  the  presence 
of  the  Highest.  Nay,  he  worshipped  himself 
with  the  worshippers  of  every  cult  and  creed. 
His  spirit  went  out  in  communion  just  as 
surely  on  the  wings  of  the  modest  prayer  ut- 
tered in  the  poorest  and  meanest  earthly  tab- 
ernacle as  on  the  incense  of  a  pompous  cere- 
monial in  a  gorgeous  cathedral.  Since 
Thomas  Wilson,  the  first  minister  of  the  first 
church  in  this  historic  city,  no  more  genuinely 
pious  and  devout  soul  has  walked  the  streets 
of  Boston  than  Benjamin  Kimball  Russ. 

He  was  a  passionate  lover  of  nature ;  not 
only  that,  but  he  knew  and  rejoiced  in  the 
message  it  had  to  give.  Like  Hosea  Ballou, 
2d,  and  Thomas  Starr  King  he  loved  the 
mighty  hills  among  which  in  these  later  years 
his  daily  life  was  cast.  Every  day  he  looked 
upon  the  impressive  forms  of  Adams  and  Jef- 
ferson with  increasing  interest  because  they 


114  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

proclaimed  with  an  emphasis  that  could  not 
be  mistaken  the  majesty  and  infinity  of  God. 
I  rode  down  with  him  one  day  through  Shel- 
burne,  crossed  the  river  and  came  up  on 
the  other  side  of  the  bridge  from  which  the 
finest  view  of  Mount  Washington  is  to  be  had, 
where  you  see  the  whole  mountain  from  its 
roots  to  the  summit  set  in  the  everlasting 
framework  of  the  hills.  I  suppose  he  had 
seen  it  a  hundred  times,  but  he  stopped  his 
horse  and  sat  awed  and  silent  before  it  for 
several  minutes;  and  then  he  turned  to  me 
and  said,  "  I  will  lift  up  mine  eyes  unto  the 
hills,  from  whence  cometh  my  help."  It  is 
something  of  a  satisfaction  that  one  who 
adored  the  hills  not  only  for  their  beauty,  but 
for  the  exposition  they  give  of  eternal  verities, 
should  have  passed  his  last  days  under  their 
shadow  and  that  they  should  have  been  the 
last  things  his  eyes  beheld.  In  his  thought 
they  stood  as  the  living  gateway  of  the  new 
Jerusalem. 

To  the  youngest  of  the  present  generation 
of  Universalist  ministers,  he  is  almost  entirely 
unknown,  and  even  those  of  ten  or  fifteen 
years'  standing  have  had  few  opportunities  to 
test  his  quality.  But  those  of  us  who  knew 
him  in  the  unfolding  period  of  his  bright  and 


THE  REV.  B.  K.  RUSS  115 

promising  youth,  or  in  the  strength  and  ma- 
turity of  his  powers,  without  dissent,  will 
affirm  that  but  for  limitations  which  were 
superficial,  but  which  he  could  not  overcome, 
he  would  have  been  a  great  leader  and  teacher 
among  men.  To  us,  therefore,  the  passing 
away  of  so  much  power  is  an  occasion  of  in- 
effable sadness.  Our  sorrow  is  enhanced  still 
further  by  the  fact  that  he  possessed  qualities 
of  almost  matchless  loveliness.  The  charm 
and  grace  of  his  personality  was  irresistible. 
He  was  bound  to  those  he  loved  with  hooks 
of  steel.  A  friendship  once  formed  was  to  him 
sacred  and  inviolable  forever ;  and  those  who 
walked  with  him  as  I  have  done  in  confi- 
dential affection  feel  as  if  a  very  essential  part 
of  life  had  been  taken  away.  After  such  a 
loss  I  feel  more  than  ever  as  if  henceforth 
my  conversation  should  be  in  heaven.  The 
best  privilege  that  I  can  claim  is  that  of  lay- 
ing this  tribute  of  a  lifelong  love  on  his  new 
made  grave. 

Farewell  beloved  friend,  noble  and  true, — 
friend  of  my  youth  and  maturer  manhood ! 
Farewell  white  soul,  fit  for  the  society  and 
fellowship  of  angels !  That  you  have  entered 
into  the  great  company  of  immortals  whom 
your  matchless  religious  imagination  so  often 


Il6  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

enabled  you  to  prefigure,  the  great  company 
of  those  who  have,  washed  their  robes  and 
made  them  white  in  the  blood  of  the  lamb,  I 
do  not  doubt  any  more  than  I  doubt  my  own 
existence.  My  devout  prayer  to  almighty 
God  is,  that  when  my  time  shall  come  to 
cross  the  mysterious  boundary  into  the  ' '  land 
of  the  hereafter, ' '  your  clarion  voice  may  be 
the  first  to  hail  me  from  the  other  side  and 
your  hand  the  first  extended  in  welcome. 


THE  POLICY  OF  EXPANSION 


ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  CONGREGATIONAL  CLUB  IN 
TREMONT  TEMPLE,  DECEMBER  27,  1898. 


Mr.  President  and  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

I  count  it  an  honor  to  be  invited  to  this 
board  on  this  festive  and,  may  I  not  say,  his- 
toric occasion.  Nevertheless  I  feel  that  I 
am  entitled  to  your  commiseration,  since  I 
am  to  present  one  side  of  the  most  important 
question  that  has  confronted  the  American 
people  since  the  war  of  the  rebellion,  and  am 
to  be  followed  by  one  of  the  most  eminent 
constitutional  lawyers  and  statesmen  of  the 
country.  Of  course,  I  have  not  the  vanity  to 
suppose  that  any  words  that  I  can  utter  will 
have  the  value  that  attaches  to  Governor 
Boutwell's  thought.  Still  I  am  compelled  after 
the  most  careful  consideration  to  lift  up  my 
voice  in  behalf  of  the  policy  of  President 
McKinley.  My  sense  of  nationality  is  too 
intense  to  permit  me  to  do  otherwise.  I  hate 
to  be  called  a  little  American.  Moreover,  I 
feel  that  expansion  has  been  the  moving 
principle  of  the  country  from  the  time  of  the 
earliest  settlement.  Your  meeting  to-night  is 


Il8  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

a  postponed  celebration  of  Forefathers'  Day. 
Who  were  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  but  an  ex- 
pansionist embassy  going  forth  in  the  name 
of  God  and  humanity  to  lay  the  foundations 
of  a  new  empire  in  a  new  world  ?  When  I 
think  of  the  marvellous  history,  first  of  the 
American  colonies  and  then  of  the  American 
states;  when  I  recall  the  march  of  empire 
from  the  straggling  villages,  planted  in  toil 
and  terror  by  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  to  the 
valleys  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  and 
over  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  the  Pacific 
shore;  when  I  remember  the  providential  res- 
cue of  the  people  from  the  throes  of  revolu- 
tion and  rebellion  and  their  guidance  in  the 
pathway  of  a  constantly  enlarging  national 
existence,  I  am  compelled  to  believe  that 
God  was  at  the  helm  guiding  the  Olympia 
and  her  consorts  into  Manila  Bay  just  as 
surely  as  he  guided  the  Mayflower  into  Ply- 
mouth harbor.  Accordingly,  I  believe  also 
that  the  United  States  is  perfectly  justified 
in  wresting  the  Philippines  from  the  grasp 
of  Spain  and  in  holding  them  for  the  pur- 
poses of  good  government  and  progressive 
civilization.  Indeed,  I  am  persuaded  that  the 
country  would  be  exposed  to  the  reproach 
of  history  and  the  unmistakable  condem- 


POIylCY  OF  EXPANSION  1 19 

nation  of  all  good  men  if  she  were  to  do  less. 
What  are  the  objections  to  this  course  ? 

We  are  told,  in  the  first  place,  that  it  is 
unconstitutional.  We  cannot  assume  the 
sovereignty  of  their  territory  or  their  peoples. 
Any  act  that  looks  in  the  direction  of  the  ac- 
quisition of  new  territory  and  new  population 
is  in  the  nature  of  annexation,  making  the 
people  virtually  citizens  of  the  United  States. 
No  one  reveres  more  than  I  do  the  authority 
of  those  who  present  this  view.  I  bow 
cheerfully  to  the  wisdom  of  the  gentleman 
who  is  to  follow  me  in  this  discussion.  My 
respect  for  his  right  to  speak  upon  constitu- 
tional questions  is  witnessed  by  the  fact  that 
I  use  his  treatise  in  my  own  classes  as  a  text- 
book. 

But  I  cannot  help  remarking  that  the  view 
is  that  of  the  strict  constructionist ;  and 
while  the  strict  constructionist  has  ever  had 
great  influence  and  rendered  important  ser- 
vice he  has  invariably  gone  to  the  wall. 
Contrast  Buchanan  with  Lincoln.  Buchanan 
was  undoubtedly  a  patriot  and  a  statesman. 
But  he  was  paralyzed  in  the  presence  of  re- 
bellion because  he  could  not  find  in  the  con- 
stitution the  authority  to  coerce  a  state.  But 
Mr.  Lincoln  took  the  ground  that  the  consti- 


120  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

tution  was  not  a  finality,  it  was  only  the 
instrument  of  the  national  life.  The  nation 
did  not  exist  for  the  constitution,  but  the 
constitution  for  the  nation.  The  framers  of 
the  constitution  were  not  so  vain  as  to  imag- 
ine that  they  had  uttered  the  final  word. 
They  made  provision  for  amendment,  and 
already  there  have  been  fifteen  amendments 
to  the  instrument  in  less  than  a  hundred 
years. 

Moreover,  it  is  of  the  very  essence  of  a  suc- 
cessful constitution  that  it  shall  be  elastic. 
The  English  constitution  is  unwritten,  and 
hence  there  is  no  obstacle  to  its  modification 
to  suit  the  exigencies  of  new  times.  But 
even  written  constitutions  have  capacities  for 
growth.  The  Roman  jurisconsults  assumed 
that  the  Twelve  Tables  contained  not  only 
the  ground  work  but  the  ultimate  expression 
of  the  law  of  Rome ;  and  yet,  as  Mr.  Maine 
has  shown,  on  the  basis  of  the  Twelve  Tables 
they  built  up  the  most  elastic,  the  most  com- 
prehensive and  the  most  perfect  system  of 
jurisprudence  that  the  world  ever  saw.  That 
system  in  principle  and  essence  is  ours  to- 
day. We  must  be  faithful  to  its  spirit.  The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  stands  face 
to  face  with  a  condition  to  which  it  must 


THE;  POLICY  OF  EXPANSION         121 

bend.  I  am  reminded  of  General  Butler  be- 
fore Baltimore.  He  said,  "I  cannot  go  over 
the  city  nor  under  it,  and  I  shall  go  through 
it."  The  American  people  have  decreed  that 
a  certain  thing  shall  be  done  and  they  will 
find  a  way  to  do  it  without  violence  to  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  republic. 

Again,  it  is  said  that  the  course  proposed 
by  the  President  and  involved  in  the  treaty  of 
peace,  is  unjust.  It  is  contrary  to  the  De- 
claration of  Independence,  which  asserts  that 
the  just  powers  of  states  are  ' '  derived  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed."  Of  course 
all  intelligent  Americans  accept  the  doctrine 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  But  it 
must  not  be  forgotten  that  this  is  a  sweeping 
assertion  of  a  universal  principle.  The  diffi- 
culty consists  in  its  application.  There  has 
never  been  a  time  when  the  principle  has 
been  in  perfect  operation  since  the  indepen- 
dence of  the  nation  was  achieved.  How  shall 
the  application  of  the  principle  be  secured  in 
the  Philippines  ?  By  sailing  away  and  leav- 
ing them  to  anarchy  and  self-destruction  ? 
By  handing  them  over  to  the  tyranny  of  na- 
tions that,  on  our  departure,  will  immediately 
begin  the  struggle  for  their  capture  ?  Or  by 
taking  control,  preserving  order,  prescribing 


122  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

just  laws,  setting  up  schools,  teaching  letters, 
morals,  and  the  broad  and  wholesome  ideas  of 
ethical  and  religious  freedom  which  the  Pil- 
grims brought  to  our  shores  ?  I  leave  it  for 
you  to  answer. 

It  is  said  that  we  are  attempting  an  impos- 
sible task.  We  shall  have  to  deal  with  an 
unassimilable  population.  We  have  had  no 
experience  in  governing  colonies  and  we 
have  no  wisdom  of  statesmanship  that  is 
equal  to  the  perplexing  problems  which  will 
be  presented.  Of  course  we  cannot  make 
white  men  of  black  men.  We  cannot  change 
Malays  into  Aryans.  But  anthropological 
science,  and  the  careful  study  of  the  habits 
and  mental  characteristics  of  races,  are  dem- 
onstrating the  truth  of  the  Apostle's  declara- 
tion that  "God  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  races 
of  men,"  and  that  while  there  is  an  ineradi- 
cable difference  between  the  Aryan,  the  Ne- 
gro, and  the  Mongolian,  there'  is  the  same 
fundamental  human  quality  in  all.  Do  we 
not  assume  too  much  when  we  attribute  the 
instinct  and  possibility  of  free  institutions  to 
men  of  Anglo  Saxon  blood  and  breeding? 
Surely  the  Filipinos  have  already  imbibed  the 
idea  and  the  ardent  desire  for  freedom,  in- 


POUCY  OF  EXPANSION          123 

spired  and  encouraged  largely  by  the  example 
of  this  great  republic. 

Who,  moreover,  shall  say  that  in  view  of 
the  experience  we  have  acquired,  the  lessons 
we  have  learned  and  the  traditions  we  have 
inherited,  we  are  unequal  to  the  task  of  de- 
vising a  government  suited  to  the  needs  of  a 
people  whom  we  are  seeking  to  uplift  and 
transform  ?  For  myself  I  do  not  cherish  so 
poor  an  opinion  of  American  statesmanship. 
The  one  thing  for  which  the  American  states- 
man is  characterized  above  every  other  is  the 
ability  to  meet  new  exigencies  and  to  devise 
governments  adapted  to  original  and  untried 
conditions.  By  the  memory  of  all  the 
Adamses,  by  the  unrivalled  genius  of  Jeffer- 
son, by  the  matchless  common  sense  of  Lin- 
coln, I  declare  that  this  assumption  is  the 
substance  of  tales  that  are  told  to  frighten 
children.  Of  course,  we  can  govern  depen- 
dencies, by  whatever  name  you  call  them, 
and  govern  them  well,  if  we  set  out  to  do  it. 

But  we  have  no  right  to  make  the  effort 
until  our  own  home  problems  are  all  solved 
and  we  have  achieved  a  perfect  government. 
Who  believes  that  ?  Shall  the  citizen  refrain 
from  voting  and  from  any  effort  to  regulate 
the  affairs  of  the  community  at  large  because 


124  OCCASION AI,   ADDRESSES 

he  cannot  rule  his  own  household  according 
to  an  ideal  standard  which  he  or  some  one 
else  has  conceived  as  essential  ?  How  often 
it  happens  that  men  acquire  wisdom,  modera- 
tion, justice,  and  self-control,  which  are  ap- 
plicable within  the  domestic  circle,  from  their 
contact  with  man  in  the  outer  world.  This 
is  precisely  what  happens  in  the  experience 
of  nations.  Great  Britain  began  to  acquire 
toleration,  breadth  of  view,  humanity  and  a 
nobler  justice,  as  soon  as  she  adopted  a  hu- 
mane policy  for  her  colonies.  The  United 
States  of  America  will  exhibit  a  broader  wis- 
dom, a  higher  statesmanship  as  soon  as  she 
begins  to  look  beyond  the  dominion  of  her 
own  states  vast  as  that  dominion  may  be. 

We  are  trying,  it  is  affirmed,  to  play  the 
imperialistic  role.  We  are  walking  in  the 
steps  of  ancient  Rome  and  following  her  ex- 
ample to  decadence  and  destruction.  Men 
seem  to  forget  that  Rome  was  pagan  and  not 
Christian,  that  she  gave  shelter  to  corruptions 
and  cruelties  which  have  not  even  a  name  in 
modern  civilization.  Yet  in  spite  of  her  de- 
fects and  her  wickedness  she  exerted  her 
power  for  nearly  a  thousand  years.  Her  de- 
cline was  not  due  to  the  enlargement  of  her 
dominion.  Indeed  her  strength  came  as  she 


THE)    POLICY   OF   EXPANSION  125 

pushed  out  from  her  narrow  boundaries  on 
the  banks  of  the  Tiber  until  the  whole  of 
Italy  was  hers  and  did  not  cease  in  her  con- 
quering movement  until  she  held  the  known 
world  in  her  relentless  grasp.  Her  decline 
came  with  the  advent  of  public  corruption, 
the  decay  of  civic  virtue  and  the  failure  of 
that  stoic  philosophy  in  which  her  great  men 
and  heroes  had  been  nurtured.  I  do  not 
know  how  long  the  American  republic  may 
be  expected  to  endure.  But  I  am  sure  that 
the  people  have  all  the  virility  and  valor  of 
the  Romans,  and  they  have  what  the  Romans 
had  not,  a  Christian  morality,  a  Christian 
civilization  and  a  Christian  faith. 

Be  it  remembered,  also,  as  has  been  justly 
said,  that  the  true  comparison  is  not  with 
Rome  but  England.  England  certainly  is 
the  grandest  and  most  successful  colonizer  in 
the  history  of  the  world.  Her  civilization 
has  endured  for  a  thousand  years  and  is  not 
yet  touched  with  the  symptoms  of  decay. 
We  who  are  not  doomed  to  the  isolation  of  a 
sea-girt  island,  we  who  have  a  vast  continent 
as  the  seat  of  our  dominion,  we  who  have  in- 
herited not  only  the  English  blood,  but  the 
English  speech,  traditions,  civilization,  law, 
and  whatever  is  most  noble  in  the  English 


126  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

aspirations  and  ambitions,  may  certainly  hope 
for  at  least  one  millennium  of  power,  even 
though  we  may  seek  to  follow  the  English 
example  of  governing  colonies  beyond  the 
seas. 

But  what  are  some  of  the  positive  reasons 
for  this  policy  ? 

At  the  outset  I  should  affirm  with  emphasis 
that  expansion  is  the  law  of  growth.  It  is 
true  of  trees.  When  a  tree  ceases  to  expand 
then  its  decay  sets  in.  If  you  try  to  prevent 
its  expansion  by  putting  an  iron  jacket 
around  it  you  ensure  its  destruction.  It  is 
true  of  men.  I  am  not  so  tall  by  half  an  inch 
as  I  was  twenty  years  ago,  I  may  have  more 
fat  but  I  have  not  the  muscular  power  that  I 
had  at  forty.  No  doubt,  the  fathers  would 
have  been  stricken  dumb  at  the  thought  of  a 
dominion  in  the  far  off  islands  of  the  Pacific 
sea.  But  the  times  have  changed.  Think 
of  what  the  conditions  were  when  the  consti- 
tution was  framed!  Think  of  what  Boston 
was,  a  mere  village  shivering  on  our  New 
England  seaboard ;  and  now  its  pavements 
echo  daily  to  the  tramp  of  nearly  a  million 
men!  Think  of  the  mighty  cities  that  have 
sprung  up  in  different  parts  of  the  country  that 
did  not  have  a  name  to  exist  then !  Think 


THE)    POLICY   OF   EXPANSION  127 

how  our  territories  have  been  enlarged  by 
conquest  and  by  treaty  and  by  purchase ! 
Think  of  the  statesmen  and  reformers  and 
spiritual  leaders  and  heroes  who  have  been 
bred  within  our  borders  !  Think  of  the  mar- 
vels that  have  been  wrought  in  the  control  of 
Nature's  forces,  the  locomotive  transporting 
men  and  merchandise  with  almost  the  swift- 
ness of  light  from  one  end  of  the  continent  to 
the  other,  the  steamship  bringing  London 
nearer  to  Boston  than  New  York  was  in  the 
time  of  the  Revolution,  the  electric  current 
belting  the  globe,  enabling  us  to  read  at  our 
breakfast  table  the  deeds  of  yesterday  in 
Bgypt,  in  India,  in  China  and  Japan  !  And 
now  the  children  of  this  great  republic  have 
come  to  the  gates  of  the  farther  sea.  They 
look  out  towards  the  West  or  the  East,  which- 
ever you  choose  to  call  it,  towards  the  region 
of  both  the  setting  and  the  rising  sun.  Nay, 
the  standard  of  the  nation  has  already  been 
planted  in  the  Hawaiian  islands,  which  the 
sons  of  the  missionaries  sent  out  by  your  own 
denomination,  have  civilized  and  turned  into 
a  garden.  Shall  they  hesitate  or  falter? 
Shall  they  fail  to  go  forward  because  some 
timid  souls  have  not  been  able  to  recognize 
that  seal  of  destiny  which  the  Almighty  put 


128  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

upon  the  Mayflower  as  she  sailed  past  the  toe 
of  Cape  Cod  and  cast  her  anchor  in  Massa- 
chusetts Bay,  her  cabin  stowed  with  the  sifted 
wheat  of  three  kingdoms  as  the  living  seed  of 
of  a  new  nation  in  the  West  ? 

"O  East  is  East  and  West  is  West 

' '  And  never  the  twain  shall  meet 

"  Till  earth  and  sky  stand  presently 

"At  God's  great  judgment  seat. 

"  But  there  is  neither  East  nor  West 

"Border,  nor  breed  nor  birth, 

"  When  two  strong  men  stand  face  to  face, 

Though  they  come  from  the  ends  of  the  earth." 

Our  destiny  is  decreed  by  the  law  of  nat- 
ure and  the  law  of  humanity. 

Another  reason  for  expansion  is  found  in 
the  demands  of  commerce.  Some  will  say 
this  is  a  mercenary  reason  and  should  not  be 
regarded.  But  if  one  will  stop  to  reflect  for 
a  moment  and  consider  how  vitally  commerce 
is  related  to  all  the  more  spiritual  elements  of 
human  life,  he  will  cease  to  press  this  ob- 
jection. There  are  none  bold  enough  to  say 
openly,  ' '  we  do  not  want  commerce  in  the 
far-off  orient."  But  there  are  those  who  say 
it  by  implication.  We  have  room  enough  for 
commercial  development  within  our  own 
borders.  We  can  consume  what  we  produce 


THE   POUCY  OF  EXPANSION  129 

and  produce  what  we  can  consume.  The 
home  market  is  sufficient.  No  doubt  we 
have  a  most  remarkable  home  market.  But 
no  nation  ever  yet  reached  the  highest  point 
of  achievement  by  relying  simply  on  its  own 
markets.  Moreover,  we  are  a  commercial 
people.  What  would  become  of  Boston  and 
New  York  and  Philadelphia  and  Baltimore 
without  commerce  ?  Our  exports  of  the  year 
just  drawing  to  a  close  are  almost  beyond 
precedent.  And  yet,  the  complaint  on  every 
hand  is  that  our  mills  are  idle  and  that  our 
labor  is  unemployed.  We  must  have  new 
demands  for  our  products.  This  is  true  to- 
day when  we  have  a  population  of  seventy 
millions.  How  much  more  will  it  be  true 
when  we  have  two  hundred  millions.  The 
child  is  born  in  Boston  who  will  live  to  see 
that  number  within  the  existing  borders  of  the 
United  States.  Ours  must  be  therefore  the 
great  commercial  nation  of  the  future.  Do 
not  forget  that  the  time  is  ripe  in  the  Orient 
and  now  is  one  of  golden  opportunity.  The 
old  conditions  in  that  part  of  the  world  are 
passing  away.  Not  only  Great  Britain  with 
her  unrivalled  naval  and  commercial  power  is 
there  watching  her  interests,  but  the  nations 
of  continental  Kurope  are  struggling  for  an 


130  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

advantage.  But  with  a  strong  intrenchment 
in  the  Philippines  we  can  have  the  commerce 
of  the  world  at  our  feet. 

Again,  the  policy  of  expansion  is  demand- 
ed by  the  law  of  reciprocal  obligation.  There 
are  those  who  say  that  we  had  better  mind 
our  own  business.  They  quote  Washington 
who  in  the  infancy  of  the  republic  counselled 
against  entangling  alliances.  But  no  man 
reads  the  Farewell  Address  aright  if  he  de- 
duces from  it  the  suggestion  that  the  nation 
as  it  should  grow  to  power  must  neglect  its  re- 
sponsibilities and  obligations  in  the  world  at 
large.  There  was  a  time,  beyond  question, 
when  it  behooved  the  nation  to  attend  strictly 
to  its  own  concerns,  to  compact  its  resources, 
to  husband  its  strength  and  perfect  its  insti- 
tutions. But  that  time  has  gone  by  forever. 
A  young  man  marries  a  wife  and  moves  into 
a  humble  tenement  on  a  side  street.  He 
goes  about  modestly  as  becomes  one  who  is 
conscious  of  his  poverty  and  youth.  But  by 
prudence  and  economy  and  strict  attention  to 
business  his  fortunes  by  and  by  improve. 
Wealth  rolls  in  upon  him  and  he  begins  to 
be  a  power  in  trade.  It  is  time  for  him  to 
move  out  of  the  side  street  and  build  a  man- 
sion on  the  main  avenue,  to  take  his  place  in 


THE   POUCY   OF  EXPANSION  131 

the  community  as  one  of  its  active  forces  and 
to  bear  his  part  of  the  burdens  of  church 
and  state.  If  he  fails  to  do  that  we  de- 
clare that  he  is  wanting  in  public  spirit,  that 
he  is  selfish,  living  only  for  his  own  gratifica- 
tion, and  that  he  is  unworthy  of  the  regard  of 
society  whose  blessings  he  enjoys.  But  there 
is  no  law  for  men  that  does  not  also  apply  to 
nations.  The  time  has  come  for  the  United 
States  to  bear  her  full  part  in  the  politics  and 
policies  of  nations.  She  cannot  do  otherwise 
if  she  would.  She  must  stand  forth  as  the 
champion  of  justice  and  liberty  and  progress. 
Finally,  I  may  claim  that  expansion  is  jus- 
tified on  the  grounds  of  humanity.  I  know 
it  is  held  that  nations  have  nothing  to  do 
with  sentiments  of  humanity  outside  of  their 
own  borders.  I  have  heard  it  boldly  pro- 
claimed by  the  sons  of  those  who  were  in- 
strumental in  striking  the  shackles  from  the 
limbs  of  slaves,  that  we  have  enough  to  do  to 
lift  up  the  down-trodden  at  home  without  go- 
ing over  seas  to  give  succor  to  those  who 
may  be  suffering  under  an  alien  flag.  In- 
deed, our  recent  war  with  Spain  was  declared 
unholy  and  wicked  even  though  waged  in 
the  name  of  justice  and  humanity.  That  is  a 
strange  doctrine. 


132  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

The  right  of  interference  on  the  grounds  of 
humanity  has  been  defended  by  the  most 
eminent  international  lawyers  in  modern 
times,  and  is  always  held  when  diplomacy 
rises  above  the  dead  level  of  a  time  serving 
policy.  This  was  the  ground  on  which 
France  extended  a  helping  hand  to  us  in  our 
great  struggle  for  independence.  This  was 
the  ground  on  which  the  nations  of  Europe 
in  the  early  part  of  this  century  combined 
against  Turkey  for  the  preservation  of 
Greece.  It  has  formed  the  basis  of  some  of 
the  greatest  conflicts  of  the  modern  world. 
This  was  what  moved  President  McKinley 
when  he  replied  to  the  diplomatic  representa- 
tives of  Europe  that  the  condition  of  affairs 
in  Cuba  had  become  intolerable.  Almost 
from  the  foundation  of  our  republic  Spain 
had  been  making  her  unjust  exactions  of  the 
Cuban  people.  For  three  quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury the  unhappy  island  had  been  in  a  state 
of  chronic  rebellion.  At  last  the  American 
people  could  endure  it  no  longer.  They  re- 
solved that  it  must  cease  at  once  and  forever. 
In  the  carrying  out  of  that  resolution, 
Dewey  was  sent  to  destroy  the  Spanish  fleet 
at  Manila.  But  no  sooner  was  the  work  ac- 
complished than  it  was  found  that  a  state  of 


OF  EXPANSION          133 

things  existed  in  the  Philippines  that  was 
nearly  analogous  to  that  in  Cuba.  Surely 
justice  and  humanity  alike  require  that  we 
should  pursue  a  similar  course  of  friendly 
oversight  and  control.  It  would  be  cowardly 
and  cruel  to  abandon  the  Philippines  in  their 
time  of  need  after  we  have  driven  the  tyrant 
from  their  doors. 

For  myself  I  can  but  take  the  most  hopeful 
view  of  the  entire  situation.  The  coming  of 
the  Olympia  on  that  May  morning  into  Ma- 
nila Bay  was  the  herald  of  the  dawn  of  a  new 
day  in  the  Malayan  Archipelago.  With  the 
booming  of  the  guns  of  the  American  fleet 
the  dim  and  flickering  light  of  the  sixteenth 
century  civilization  went  out  in  darkness  and 
blood  and  the  sun  of  the  twentieth  century 
rose  in  full  orbed  majesty  and  splendor.  The 
oppression  of  four  hundred  years  vanished. 
Who  shall  say  that  the  rising  of  that  sun  is 
unwelcome  ?  Who  shall  assume  to  stay  the 
bright  shining  of  its  beams  ?  Only  He  who 
said  in  the  beginning,  "  I^et  there  be  light," 
can  tell  when  the  new  day  shall  have  fulfilled 
its  purpose. 


A  TRIBUTE 

To  THE  REV.  THOMAS  JEFFERSON  SAWYER,  D.D., 

IvIv.D.,  AT  THE  MEMORIAL  SERVICE  IN 

GODDARD  CHAPEI,  Nov.  26,  1899 

We  have  gathered  here  to  pay  a  tribute  of 
friendship,  respect,  and  admiration  to  a  man 
who  holds  no  mean  place  among  the  rare 
souls  whose  lives  have  dignified  and  glorified 
this  nineteenth  century  of  Christendom. 
There  are  many  points  of  excellence  in  his 
character  which  might  fitly  inspire  the  elo- 
quence of  highest  eulogy.  If  there  were  time 
I  should  be  tempted  myself  to  indulge  in 
almost  unstinted  praise  of  our  great  and 
noble  friend.  I  can,  however,  only  claim  a 
few  moments  of  your  time,  as  it  were  by  way 
of  preface,  in  which  to  speak  of  a  few  things 
that  have  served  to  place  him  on  a  lofty  ped- 
estal of  honor  in  our  regard. 

To  begin  with,  I  cannot  withhold  my  tribute 
of  admiration  that  he  should  have  lived  so 
long  in  the  world,  and  retained  to  the  very  end 
the  full  measure  of  his  remarkable  gifts  and 
powers.  It  is  a  rare  and  notable  achievement 
that  a  single  human  life  should  have  spanned 
almost  the  whole  of  this  most  wonderful  cent- 


TO  DR.  SAWYER  135 

ury.  One  cannot  help  pausing  for  a  moment 
to  try  and  grasp  the  significance  of  such  a 
fact.  But  to  have  lived  through  it  as  Dr. 
Sawyer  did,  with  open-eyed  intelligence,  to 
have  felt  in  the  depths  of  his  soul  the  force 
and  meaning  of  its  movements,  to  have  re- 
sponded with  sympathetic  thrill  to  every  up- 
ward and  progressive  impulse  of  the  age,  to 
have  been  himself  for  three  quarters  of  a  cent- 
ury an  influential  factor  in  nearly  every  im- 
portant effort  that  has  had  for  its  aim  the 
progress  and  regeneration  of  humanity,  are 
facts  that  cannot  fail  to  draw  forth  an  expres- 
sion of  admiration  and  gratitude.  Think  of 
what  the  world  was  when  his  eyes  first  saw  the 
light  of  day  !  This  Republic,  whose  right  to 
be  had  been  purchased  by  the  blood  of  heroes 
and  martyrs,  was  not  two  decades  old.  The 
population  of  the  country  comprised  only  a  few 
millions,  distributed  for  the  most  part  in  farms 
and  straggling  villages  up  and  down  our  At- 
lantic seaboard.  Not  only  were  the  means  of 
communication  and  transportation  crude  and 
difficult,  but  all  the  facilities  of  living  were  of 
the  most  meager  and  primitive  sort.  He  saw 
our  country  expand  until  it  filled  the  choicest 
portions  of  the  continent  between  the  two 
oceans.  He  saw  the  population  increase  and 


136  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

multiply  until  the  nation  had  taken  her  place 
side  by  side  with  the  most  powerful  empires. 
He  was  an  intelligent  witness  of  nearly  all  of 
the  devices  and  inventions  that  have  trans- 
formed and  transfigured  the  physical  environ- 
ment of  man,  and  have  brought  into  the  hum- 
blest homes  facilities  and  comforts  which  the 
wealth  of  princes  could  not  command  in  any 
previous  age  of  the  world. 

Dr.  Sawyer  not  merely  saw  all  this  as  an 
interested  spectator,  but  he  was  a  part  of  it. 
He  was  a  loyal  citizen  of  his  country,  a  faith- 
ful citizen  of  the  world.  When,  in  1832,  New 
York  was  visited  with  an  epidemic  of  cholera, 
he  was  one  of  the  few  ministers  who  stood  at 
his  post,  burying  the  dead,  ministering  to  the 
dying,  and  comforting  the  living.  As  a  dis- 
tributor of  alms  among  the  poor,  both  from 
his  own  slender  resources  and  the  contribu- 
tions of  his  wealthy  parishioners,  few  minis- 
ters have  ever  been  more  conspicuous.  He 
was  a  philanthropist  and  patriot  in  every 
fibre  of  his  being.  In  the  cause  of  anti-slav- 
ery he  was  outspoken  when  it  required  cour- 
age and  heroism  to  take  a  stand.  Horace  Gree- 
ley  was  a  constant  attendant  upon  his  preach- 
ing; the  latch-string  of  the  Sawyer  home  was 
always  out  to  the  great  reformer,  and  he  re- 


TO  DR.  SAWYER  137 

ceived  unfailing  encouragement  and  counsel 
for  his  work  from  both  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Sawyer. 
When  the  war  for  the  preservation  of  the 
Union  broke  out,  his  sons  entered  the  service 
of  their  country ;  and  the  columns  of  The 
Christian  Ambassador,  of  which  he  was  the 
editor,  blazed  with  patriotic  fervor.  I  have 
never  known  a  man  who  had  a  keener  interest 
in  all  the  great  movements  of  mankind,  nor 
one  whose  judgment  was  cooler  and  saner. 
He  was  never  swept  away  by  enthusiasms, 
never  acted  from  caprice,  never  took  an  ex- 
treme or  exaggerated  view  of  public  ques- 
tions, and  never  suffered  himself  to  be  blinded 
by  prejudice  to  the  light  of  new  truth.  The 
departure  from  this  life  of  such  a  well-bal- 
anced, wholesome,  human  soul  is  a  positive 
loss  to  mankind. 

All  this,  however,  is  scarcely  more  than 
incidental,  in  your  thought  and  mine,  to  the 
career  which  our  friend  accomplished.  We 
think  of  him  to-day,  and  shall  always  think 
of  him,  as  the  champion — in  some  respects, 
perhaps,  the  foremost  champion — of  Univer- 
salism.  All  his  other  achievements  are  but 
secondary  and  subordinate  to  this.  He  con- 
secrated himself  and  all  his  powers  to  this 
cause  in  his  early  manhood,  and  to  his  dying 


138  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

day  he  never  failed  to  make  this  the  one 
supreme  interest  of  his  being.  When  he  first 
began  the  proclamation  of  his  message  in  the 
city  of  New  York,  it  was  like  the  "voice  of 
one  crying  in  the  wilderness. ' '  The  attitude 
of  John  at  the  fords  of  the  Jordan  was  not 
more  original  or  heroic  ;  and  as  the  forerun- 
ner and  herald  of  larger  things  in  the  expe- 
rience of  men,  scarcely  one  since  the  days  of 
that  greatest  of  all  the  Messianic  prophets  has 
performed  a  nobler  task.  L,ike  the  early 
evangelists  he  went  carrying  * '  neither  purse 
nor  scrip,"  or,  as  we  say  in  modern  parlance, 
*  'he  burned  his  bridges  behind  him. ' '  He  went 
forth  to  do  a  great  work,  and  he  meant  to  stay 
until  it  was  done.  He  had  a  word  to  utter, 
and  he  meant  that  the  town  should  hear  it, — 
and  it  did.  As  Paul  stirred  Kphesus,  so  this 
young  servant  of  Christ  stirred  New  York 
from  eighteen  hundred  and  thirty  to  eighteen 
hundred  and  forty-five.  His  first  aim  was  to 
preach  the  gospel  in  the  new  interpretation 
which  he  had  conceived.  It  was  not  long  be- 
fore the  people  recognized  that  he  was  a 
preacher  not  only  with  a  new  message  but 
with  a  new  power.  He  came  to  his  pulpit  on 
Sunday  with  painstaking  and  ample  prepara- 
tion. He  spoke  not  only  with  a  scholar's  ele- 


TRIBUTE)  TO  DR.  SAWYER  139 

gance  and  finish  but  with  a  force,  a  vigor,  and 
an  eloquence  which  made  the  people  listen. 
I  like  to  think  of  him  as  a  preacher  of  com- 
manding personality  and  apostolic  fire,  as  one 
whose  soul  was  alive  with  a  great  and  domi- 
nating idea,  and  one  who  was  determined  to 
know  nothing  among  men  but  that  noble  and 
life-giving  message.  I  like  to  recall  his  equip- 
ment for  the  ministry,  and  his  diligence  and 
devotion.  These  qualities  would  have  been  of 
themselves  enough  to  ensure  the  making  of  a 
permanent  impress  upon  the  life  of  a  great 
city. 

But  he  was  more  than  a  preacher  of  unusual 
merit  and  power.  His  message  was  in  itself 
a  challenge.  It  was  a  bold  defiance  of  cher- 
ished dogmas  which  had  held  sway  in  Chris- 
tendom for  three  hundred  years.  It  was  in- 
evitable that  his  attitude  should  give  rise  to 
the  fiercest  and  most  unrelenting  theological 
controversy  that  has  been  waged  in  modern 
times.  In  this  field  he  was  the  supreme  and 
absolute  master.  There  was  not  a  single 
piece  of  vantage  ground  in  it,  whether  for 
purposes  of  defence  or  offence,  that  did  not 
fall  under  his  watchful  eye.  He  was  omni- 
present. His  intellect  rose  to  gigantic  pro- 
portions. No  matter  how  distinguished  his 


140  OCCASIONAL,   ADDRESSES 

antagonist,  it  was  an  unequal  contest.  The 
victory  was  always  with  him.  It  made  no 
difference  whether  it  was  a  hand-to-hand  con- 
flict of  open  debate,  or  whether  the  missiles 
were  the  products  of  pen  and  ink,  hurled  from 
behind  the  breastworks  of  the  editorial  office 
or  the  minister's  study.  He  never  retired 
from  the  field  except  as  a  victor.  No  warrior 
ever  dealt  him  a  blow  that  caused  his  eye  to 
droop  or  his  tongue  to  falter.  Moreover, 
though  the  fray  was  eager,  and  there  were 
heart  burnings  and  jealousies  and  even  hatreds, 
he  was  undisturbed.  His  urbanity,  simplicity 
and  gentleness  never  forsook  him.  Whoever 
crossed  swords  with  him  was  sure  to  go  away 
with  the  conviction  that,  though  he  could 
fight  like  Sampson  or  Gideon,  he  was  always 
a  courteous,  Christian  gentleman. 

No  Universalist  gathering  can  ever  forget 
his  matchless  service  in  behalf  of  denomina- 
tional education.  When  his  work  began, 
there  were  no  schools  under  Universalist 
auspices.  He  himself  had  been  trained  in 
Middlebury  College,  and  he  was  a  scholar  by 
instinct.  He  saw  the  need  of  the  higher 
training,  both  for  the  clergy  and  the  laity  of 
our  communion.  Accordingly,  in  1845,  he 
withdrew  from  his  New  York  pulpit  and  went 


TRIBUTE  TO  DR.  SAWYER  141 

to  Clinton  to  take  up,  on  his  own  responsibil- 
ity, the  work  of  both  academic  and  theolog- 
ical instruction.  But  he  felt  that  that  was 
but  a  makeshift,  and  he  began  immediately 
the  agitation  for  something  more  substantial 
and  permanent.  In  this  effort  he  found  a 
congenial  helper  in  the  Rev.  Hosea  Ballou  2d, 
of  Medford.  The  correspondence  preserved 
between  them  shows  how  completely  sympa- 
thetic they  were  in  regard  to  the  establish- 
ment of  an  institution  of  the  higher  learning. 
But  the  movement  out  of  which  Tufts  College 
sprang  had  its  inception  in  his  brain.  He 
conceived  the  idea.  He  set  the  forces  in  mo- 
tion. He  called  the  first  meeting  to  consider 
the  founding  of  a  college,  and  he  labored  with 
unflagging  energy  and  zeal  until  the  deed 
was  done.  We  remember,  of  course,  that 
other  men  besides  Dr.  Ballou  joined  hands 
with  him  in  the  effort ;  Otis  A.  Skinner, 
Thomas  Whittemore  and  others  of  the  clergy, 
and  Silvanus  Packard,  Thomas  A.  Goddard 
and  Benjamin  B.  Mussey  of  the  laity.  With- 
out their  help,  and  the  help  of  a  multitude  of 
others,  only  second  to  them  in  importance, 
the  enterprise  could  never  have  been  brought 
to  a  successful  termination,  yet  it  is  equally 
true  that  the  beginning  was  with  him.  When 


142  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

we  stand  on  this  beautiful  hilltop  and  look 
around  and  behold  the  achievements  of  fifty 
years,  we  cannot  resist  the  conviction  that  all 
this  is  in  a  sense  a  memorial  of  this  noble  soul 
whom  we  can  never  too  highly  honor. 

If  I  were  to  speak  of  the  peculiar  personal 
qualities  of  our  departed  friend,  perhaps  I 
could  not  do  better  than  to  illustrate  what  I 
wish  to  say  by  a  reference  to  his  relations 
to  myself.  When  I  came  to  my  present  office, 
now  nearly  twenty-five  years  ago,  I  was 
scarcely  more  than  a  stripling,  with  little 
wisdom  and  less  experience.  But,  though 
he  had  twice  been  offered  the  presidency  of 
the  institution;  though  he  was  its  father 
among  living  men,  and,  in  a  sense,  its  founder; 
though  he  was  the  Nestor,  alike  among  our 
clergy  and  our  teachers,  he  received  me  with 
the  greatest  cordiality.  Indeed,  it  was  a 
comfort  to  me  then,  has  been  ever  since,  and 
will  be  to  the  end  of  my  life,  to  know  that  his 
name  stood  at  the  head  of  a  list  of  honorable 
names  presented  to  the  trustees,  asking  for 
my  appointment.  Moreover,  his  demeanor 
towards  me  never  changed.  Frederick  Doug- 
lass used  to  say  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the 
most  perfect  gentleman  he  had  ever  known. 
For  he  was  the  only  man,  who,  in  conversation 


TRIBUTE)  TO  DR.  SAWYER  143 

with  him,  did  not  make  him  conscious  that 
he  was  a  negro.  So  Dr.  Sawyer  never  once 
made  me  feel  that  he  knew  that  he  was  a 
wiser  man  and  a  more  accomplished  scholar 
than  I.  But,  on  the  contrary,  he  ever  treated 
me  with  the  respectful  deference  which  he 
thought  one  member  of  the  teaching  body 
owed  to  his  superior  in  office.  This  surely 
is  the  rarest  accomplishment  of  the  gentleman. 
While,  therefore,  I  have  every  reason  that 
you  have  to  honor  him,  I  have  reasons  which 
you  have  not,  to  regard  him  with  profound 
respect,  admiration,  affection  and  gratitude. 

Just  what  niche  in  the  immortal  gallery  of 
fame  will  be  reserved  for  his  effigy  it  may  not 
be  possible  to  foretell.  If  the  world  does  not 
absolutely  forget  those  who  have  served  it 
with  heroic  courage  and  self-denying  fidelity, 
it  surely  should  set  apart  a  simple  chaplet  for 
the  spot  where  his  dust  reposes.  Of  course 
he  will  stand  forever  on  one  of  the  loftiest 
pinnacles  which  the  Universalist  Church  has 
consecrated  to  its  great  leaders  and  teachers. 
But  how  will  the  larger  and  broader  com- 
munion of  the  saints  regard  him  ?  No  doubt 
the  Universalist  fellowship  will  fill,  ultimately, 
a  mightier  space  than  it  does  to-day.  Still, 
not  all  of  those  who  cherish  the  larger  hope, 


144  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

not  all  of  those,  even,  who  believe  in  the  final 
destruction  of  evil  and  the  permanent  triumph 
of  good,  will  gather  under  the  Universalist 
banner.  Nevertheless,  in  that  great  day  of 
reckoning  which  comes  at  last  to  all  things 
human,  in  that  time, — far  off,  perhaps, — when 
the  Church  counts  up  her  jewels,  when  she 
gives  her  plaudit  of  honor  to  those  who  have 
been  the  pioneers  and  heralds  of  her  most 
precious  truths,  when  she  singles  out  the  men 
who  have  done  more  than  all  others  to  pro- 
claim the  fatherhood  of  God,  and  to  establish 
among  the  imperishable  beliefs  of  mankind 
the  infinite,  all  comprehending,  and  uncon- 
querable qualities  of  the  divine  love,  she 
will  cause  to  stand,  at  least  side  by  side  with 
Hosea  Ballou,  set  about  with  an  undying  halo 
of  glory,  and  exalted  forever  before  the  admir- 
ing gaze  of  posterity,  our  venerable  and  be- 
loved friend,  Thomas  Jefferson  Sawyer. 


JOHN  D.   W.  JOY 


ADDRESS    DELIVERED    AT    THE    NEW    ENGLAND 
CONFERENCE,  ROXBURY,  OCTOBER  19,  1898. 


There  could  be  perhaps  no  more  fitting  oc- 
casion on  which  to  pay  a  tribute  to  the  late 
John  D.  W.  Joy,  than  this  first  public  meet- 
ing held  under  the  auspices  of  the  Universal- 
ist  General  Convention,  an  institution  which 
he  served  so  long  and  with  such  loving  faith- 
fulness, and  upon  which  he  impressed,  in 
many  years  of  his  service,  so  large  a  part  of 
his  own  personality.  There  are  many  organ- 
izations in  which  he  held  official  relation, 
where  it  seems  almost  impossible  that  his 
place  can  be  filled.  But  nowhere  can  his  loss 
be  more  keenly  felt  than  in  this  convention. 
It  is  almost  impossible  to  believe  that  we  shall 
not  meet  him  again  in  our  counsels.  We 
have  been  so  accustomed  to  look  to  him  for 
leadership,  that  for  a  good  while  to  come 
when  any  question  of  policy  is  under  discus- 
sion, we  shall  find  ourselves  looking  about 
for  the  glance  of  his  eye  and  waiting  for  the 
word  from  him  that  is  to  decide  our  own  judg- 
ment. Perhaps  this  is  more  emphatically  true 


146  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

in  the  General  Convention  than  anywhere  else . 
Naturally,  therefore,  we  ask  what  were  the 
qualities  that  gave  him  so  high  a  place  among 
us  and  made  his  influence  and  example  so 
irresistible  ? 

The  story  of  his  life  has  been  recently  told 
and  its  outline  doubtless  is  fresh  and  strong 
in  all  our  minds  ;  and  yet  I  must  refer  to  it, 
in  a  way,  because  it  furnishes  the  clue  to  his 
character  and  career.  Most  of  the  men  who 
have  risen  to  eminence  in  the  business  or 
social  life  of  Boston  have  been  country  bred. 
It  is  really  a  marvel  how  many  there  are  who 
came  from  the  rural  districts  of  some  of  the 
New  England  states  with  nothing  but  their 
strong  hands  and  imperious  wills,  and  have 
come  to  be  ' '  known  in  the  gates  ' '  as  the 
custodians  of  a  large  part  of  the  city's  fame 
and  power.  But  this  man  was  born  and  bred 
in  the  city.  All  his  life  long  he  lived  within 
the  limits  of  Boston.  As  a  boy  lie  played  in 
its  streets,  around  its  docks  and  wharves,  and 
roamed  over  all  its  vacant  spaces,  until  every 
inch  of  its  ground  was  as  familiar  to  him  as 
his  own  dooryard.  As  he  grew  to  manhood 
he  watched  with  keenest  interest  the  growth 
of  populations.  He  saw  the  rising  tide  of 
trade  and  commerce.  He  observed  the  cur- 


JOHN    D.    W.    JOY  147 

rents  of  humanity  as  they  swept  outward  from 
the  old  centres.  This  was  what  made  his 
judgment  of  the  values  of  city  property  so 
accurate  and  valuable. 

From  the  very  beginning  he  entered  into 
the  life  of  the  metropolis.  He  entered  it,  too, 
from  its  best  side,  the  side  of  its  churches 
and  charities.  He  might  be  said  almost  to 
have  been  born  into  Father  Streeter's  Church. 
There  he  was  taken  by  his  mother  when  he 
was  a  little  child  and  placed  in  the  Sunday 
school,  and  from  the  Sunday  school  he  never 
strayed,  to  his  dying  day.  His  interest  in  the 
Sunday  school  grew  with  his  years — and  it 
was  through  that  organization  that  he  gave 
the  first  proof  of  his  capacity  for  denomina- 
tional leadership.  He,  with  two  others,  Henry 
B.  Metcalf  and  the  late  Hiram  Bowles,  were 
the  prime  movers  and  organizers  of  the  Sab- 
bath School  Union,  an  institution  which  has 
exerted  an  incalculable  influence  upon  the 
Sunday  school  cause,  and  was  the  forerunner 
of  the  other  organizations  which  have  had 
such  an  important  part  in  shaping  and  direct- 
ing our  denominational  development. 

But  as  a  Boston  boy,  penetrated  with  the 
spirit  of  this  historic  municipality,  as  a  Bos- 
ton boy,  moreover,  who  had  embraced  the 


148  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

principles  of  the  Christian  religion  in  the 
humane  aspects  presented  by  the  Universalist 
interpretation,  it  was  most  natural  that  he 
should  become  strongly  conscious  of  the  needs 
of  the  city,  and  that  he  should  enter  at  once 
and  with  ardor  into  those  institutions  which 
had  a  humanitarian  aim.  He  took  up,  with 
that  zeal  and  devotion  that  ever  characterized 
him,  the  charitable  work  that  had  been  under- 
taken by  more  than  one  society  in  that  part 
of  the  city  in  which  he  then  lived.  Indeed, 
I  have  heard  him  say  that  the  method  which 
is  in  vogue  to-day  in  the  Associated  Charities 
of  Boston,  was  first  applied  there,  and  I  in- 
ferred that  it  was  he  himself  who  was  instru- 
mental in  devising  and  working  out  the  plan. 
Singularly  enough,  too,  it  was  here  that  he 
formed  the  business  acquaintance  and  connec- 
tion which  shaped  and  determined  his  subse- 
quent career.  The  firm  of  Mason  and  I^wrence 
was  one  of  the  strongest  in  New  England, 
known, indeed,  throughout  the  civilized  world. 
A  member  of  that  firm  was  a  leading  officer 
in  one  or  more  of  the  charitable  organizations 
which  attracted  Mr.  Joy's  service.  Here  Mr. 
L/awrence  had  an  opportunity  to  observe  and 
test  the  qualities  of  the  young  man.  He  saw 
the  stuff  he  was  made  of  and  the  capacity  he 


JOHN    D.    W.    JOY  149 

had  for  business.  Accordingly  when  the  oc- 
casion arose  for  special  work  in  his  store  he 
selected  this  young  man  to  perform  it.  After 
his  fitness  had  been  tested  still  further  in  actual 
performance,  he  gave  him  the  permanent  en- 
gagement which  ultimately  led  to  partnership 
in  that  world-renowned  house. 

Is  there  not  a  lesson  here  for  the  ambitious 
young  men  of  our  time,  for  those  who  are  seek- 
ing success  in  business,  or  eminence  in  profes- 
sional life  ?  Many  doubtless  think  that  Mr. 
Joy  was  absorbed  in  making  money,  that  the 
accumulation  of  a  fortune  was  the  be  all  and 
end  all  of  his  existence,  and  that  he  subordi- 
nated every  other  interest  to  that.  No  greater 
or  more  unjust  conclusion  could  be  reached. 
His  career  began  and  ended  with  the  care  for 
religion  and  humanity  in  the  foreground  of 
his  life.  In  the  very  last  days  of  his  earthly 
being,  he  was  as  punctual  in  meeting  an  en- 
gagement with  the  trustees  of  the  Home  for 
Aged  Men  as  with  the  directors  of  his  bank ; 
and  I  need  not  say  in  this  presence  that  he 
allowed  no  duty  to  stand  between  him  and  the 
demands  of  either  the  Universalist  General 
Convention  or  the  trustees  of  Tufts  College. 
Many  young  men  begin  their  professional  or 
business  career  by  putting  these  things  on 


150  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

one  side  with  the  excuse  that  they  have  no 
time  for  them,  and  they  are  very  likely  to 
wake  up  some  day  and  see  the  places  which 
they  had  hoped  to  fill,  taken  by  those  who 
somehow  have  found  the  necessary  time. 
The  truth  is,  our  whole  civilization  is  a  very 
complicated  web.  It  takes  a  thousand  differ- 
ent strands  to  make  it,  and  they  who  expect 
to  have  an  important  share  in  it,  cannot  afford 
to  neglect  a  single  one.  They  who  hope  to 
have  a  large  place  in  shaping  the  affairs  of 
the  world,  and  who  desire  and  aim  to  reap  a 
rich  harvest  from  it,  cannot  afford  to  overlook 
the  concerns  of  religion  and  humanity.  Be- 
yond question  this  is  what  the  L,ord  meant 
when  he  said  :  ' '  Seek  first  the  kingdom  of 
God  and  his  righteousness,  and  all  these 
things  shall  be  added  unto  you." 

But  the  real  thing  for  which  Mr.  Joy  seems 
to  have  been  predestined  from  his  birth,  was 
the  organization  and  development  of  the  in- 
stitutions of  the  Universalist  Church.  Before 
he  reached  mature  manhood,  the  great  distin- 
guishing doctrines  for  which  our  name  stands, 
and  for  which  we  are  known  the  world  over, 
had  received  a  grand  proclamation.  In  literary 
statement  and  vocal  utterance  they  had  taken 
their  place  among  the  well-recognized  and 


JOHN    D.    W.    JOY  151 

imperishable  truths  of  the  world.  Many  of 
the  men  who  had  won  an  immortality  of  fame 
in  the  advocacy  of  these  doctrines,  were  still 
living  in  the  prime  of  their  power.  Wherever 
they  went,  multitudes  continued  to  gather, 
to  listen  to  the  message  which  they  had  to 
deliver.  Interest  in  Universalism  as  a  new 
phase  of  Christian  teaching  and  belief  had 
scarcety  begun  to  wane,  and  it  was  a  great 
company  of  men  and  women,  taking  the  coun- 
try together,  who  could  be  counted  upon  under 
some  circumstances  to  lift  up  the  Universalist 
banner.  Yet  there  was  no  way  of  taking  the 
census  of  the  faithful.  The  believers,  how- 
ever numerous  and  widespread,  did  not  in 
any  proper  sense  constitute  a  religious  body, 
still  less  a  denomination,  not  to  speak  of  a  liv- 
ing and  working  Church.  The  multitudes 
who  were  wont  to  gather  at  the  trumpet  call 
of  the  great  evangelists  of  our  early  history, 
were  little  better  than  a  mob,  though  a  very 
orderly  and  pious  mob.  Mr.  Joy  saw  with 
perfect  clearness  of  vision  that  if  Universalism 
was  to  continue  and  be  a  power  among  men, 
there  must  be  a  new  order  in  its  life.  There 
must  be  system  in  its  efforts.  Channels  must 
be  created  in  which  the  tide  of  its  energy 


152  OCCASIONAL,   ADDRESSES 

might  be  controlled   and  through  which   it 
could  be  poured. 

Of  course,  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  he  was 
the  only  one  who  recognized  the  situation 
and  felt  that  something  must  be  done  to  give 
the  cause  he  loved  a  permanent  place  among 
the  great  religious  forces  of  mankind.  There 
was  a  goodly  number  of  such  persons,  men 
who  were  resolved  that  something  should  be 
done  to  bring  the  whole  mass  of  believers  into 
a  compact  and  working  body.  But  when  we 
have  given  due  credit  to  everyone,  it  still  re- 
mains true  that  there  was  not  one  who  was 
prepared  to  move  forward  with  snch  clearness 
and  definiteness  of  action  as  he.  Moreover, 
when  he  had  once  determined  to  go  forward 
nothing  could  induce  him  to  turn  back.  He 
would  advance  at  whatever  cost  or  hazard. 
No  doubt  the  fight  which  he  found  himself 
compelled  to  make  with  men  whom  he  had 
been  taught  from  his  childhood  to1  revere  gave 
him  a  great  pang;  but  the  issue  was  joined  and 
the  ends  to  be  gained  by  it  rose  above  all  per- 
sonal considerations;  and  though  the  work  that 
was  proposed  might  give  pain  to  some  of  the 
grandest  witnesses  to  reform  in  religious 
thought  that  the  world  had  ever  seen,  it  must 
be  done  for  the  sake  of  the  truth,  for  the  sake 


JOHN   D.    W.    JOY  153 

of  the  kingdom  of  God.  Such,  in  brief,  is  the 
account  of  the  organization  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Universalist  Convention,  and  in  that 
movement  no  one,  clergyman  or  layman, 
exerted  a  greater  influence,  or  is  better  en- 
titled to  be  termed  a  leader,  than  Mr.  Joy. 

At  a  later  date  substantially  the  same  thing 
was  accomplished  for  the  General  Convention 
and  in  substantially  the  same  way.  Fortu- 
nately, the  bitterness  of  the  earlier  conflict 
had  passed  into  oblivion,  and  in  peace  and 
harmony  it  was  permitted  to  the  leaders  of 
that  time  to  work  out  the  organization  through 
which  our  general  Church  to-day  puts  forth 
its  energies.  Our  friend  was  not  merely  an 
organizer.  He  was  not  less  conspicuous  in 
executive  ability.  It  has  been  an  inestimable 
boon  to  the  Church  that  this  man,  who  was  so 
important  a  factor  in  giving  us  our  organiz- 
ations, was  permitted  for  so  many  years  to  take 
a  leading  part  in  administering  them.  For 
more  than  thirty  years  his  hand  has  been  lit- 
erally on  the  helm  of  the  State  Convention. 
As  treasurer  and  member  of  the  Executive 
Board  he  has  not  only  gathered  the  funds,  but 
shaped  the  policy  of  the  organization.  It  is 
astonishing  what  power  he  had  in  the  initi- 
ation of  new  movements,  in  stimulating  and 


154  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

directing  missionary  efforts,  and  in  solving 
the  various  problems  that  were  presented. 
How  many  churches  there  are,  now  on  a  self- 
sustaining  basis,  that  were  saved  from  collapse 
and  ruin  by  his  method  of  taking  hold  of 
their  difficulties,  and  pointing  out  to  them  the 
road  to  economy  and  success. 

Nor  did  any  greater  bit  of  good  fortune 
ever  come  to  the  General  Convention  than 
when,  at  Chicago  in  1877,  he  signified  his 
willingness  to  serve  as  a  member  of  its  board 
of  trustees.  His  tenure  of  the  office  covered  a 
period  of  twenty-one  years.  During  eighteen 
years  of  that  time  it  was  my  privilege  to  sit 
by  his  side.  I  can  testify  from  personal  know- 
ledge to  the  breadth  of  his  views,  the  sound- 
ness of  his  judgment,  the  tenacity  of  his  pur- 
pose and  the  unselfishness  of  his  devotion. 
As  chairman  of  the  board,  and  for  a  good 
part  of  the  time  President  of  the  convention, 
he  was  entitled  to  exert  a  commanding  influ- 
ence. But  the  real  ground  of  the  power 
which  he  has  wielded  in  all  our  convention 
enterprises  must  be  attributed  to  the  superi- 
ority of  his  wisdom.  Of  course,  I  do  not 
claim  that  he  was  infallible,  nor  would  I  be 
thought  to  intimate  that  his  counsels  always 
prevailed.  Not  unfrequently  his  most  earnest 


JOHN    D.    W.    JOY  155 

convictions  were  overruled  by  the  votes  of 
his  associates.  But  I  can  assert  with  con- 
fidence that  his  view  was  generally  the  repre- 
sentative view,  and  whenever  opportunity 
was  given,  it  was  usually  ratified  by  popular 
approval.  So  then,  if  we  take  an  inventory 
of  what  the  Universalist  Church  has  accom- 
plished through  its  various  organizations 
during  the  last  thirty  years,  and  count  up 
our  present  achievements,  we  must  feel  that 
we  are  only  gathering  so  many  stones  to 
build  a  monument  to  a  great  and  unselfish 
layman. 

Time  would  fail  me  if  I  were  to  attempt  to 
speak  of  all  the  organizations  with  which  he 
was  associated.  I  must  not,  however,  pass 
over  without  mention  his  connection  with 
Tufts  College.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say 
that  of  the  institutions  which  the  Universalist 
Church  has  created,  the  grandest  of  them  all, 
and  the  one  in  which  the  Universalist  people 
take  the  deepest  and  most  genuine  pride,  is 
Tufts  College.  The  time  was,  undoubtedly, 
when  the  very  continuance  of  our  Church  as 
a  distinct  and  powerful  religious  body  de- 
pended upon  the  disposition  and  ability  of 
our  people  to  create  and  establish  at  least  one 
first  class  school  devoted  to  the  higher  learn- 


156  OCCASION AI,  ADDRESSES 

ing.  That  was  the  contention  of  both  Thomas 
J.  Sawyer  and  Hosea  Ballou,  2d.  When, 
therefore,  the  occasion  was  ripe  for  the  be- 
ginning to  be  made,  Mr.  Joy  was  one  of  those 
to  respond  to  the  summons.  He  was  then 
a  young  man  and  his  fortune  was  all  to  be 
made.  But  he  was  ready  to  do  what  he 
could,  and  was  one  of  those  of  the  then  rising 
generation  on  whom  Dr.  Ballou  leaned. 
The  interest  which  he  manifested  has  never 
nagged  but  has  grown  stronger  year  by  year. 
Twenty-three  years  ago  last  June  I  deliv- 
ered my  inaugural  address  as  President  of 
the  College.  As  I  .stepped  from  the  platform 
at  the  conclusion  of  the  ceremony,  one  of  the 
first  persons  to  grasp  me  by  the  hand  and 
tender  me  his  cordial  sympathy  and  support 
was  Mr.  Joy.  He  was  not  then  a  trustee 
and  did  not  become  one  until  five  years  later, 
but  I  began  immediately  to  seek  his  advice. 
Whenever  there  was  money  to  be  raised  or  a 
new  policy  to  be  devised,  I  was  sure  to  get 
encouragement,  help,  and  wise  suggestion 
from  him.  In  1880  he  became  a  trustee  of 
the  institution,  and  from  that  time  on,  it  is 
no  disparagement  to  his  associates  to  say  that 
he  has  exerted  a  greater  influence  in  the 
board  than  any  other.  His  service  to  the 


JOHN    D.    W.    JOY  157 

financial  interests  of  the  College  cannot  be 
computed.  But  he  has  not  confined  his  at- 
tention to  the  financial  side  of  things.  He 
has  ever  been  ready  to  study  the  higher  prob- 
lems of  college  administration  and  life,  and, 
considering  that  he  was  not  a  college  man 
himself,  it  was  wonderful  that  his  judgment 
in  these  matters  was  so  accurate.  His  views 
were  broad  and  progressive.  He  did  not  stick 
in  any  rut  of  conservatism.  He  wanted  to  see 
the  College  in  the  van  of  the  new  educational 
movements.  He  was  eager  to  enlarge  its 
scope  and  would  go  to  the  verge  of  our  finan- 
cial limits  to  give  it  the  expansion  demanded 
by  the  best  expert  opinion.  He  was  ready 
for  the  addition  of  new  departments,  and 
hoped  he  might  live  to  see  the  time  when  the 
institution  could  justly  bear  the  name  of  a 
university.  Surely  it  was  a  rare  good  fortune 
for  any  institution  of  learning  to  have  so  wise 
and  true  a  friend. 

The  time  has  not  come,  however,  to  make 
a  catalogue  of  all  his  services  to  the  Church 
and  the  community,  or  to  attempt  a  just  anal- 
ysis of  his  character.  But  we  may  safely 
enough  indicate  some  of  the  elements  which 
formed  the  substance  of  his  manhood. 

If  I  were  asked  to  name,  off  hand,  what  I 


158  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

conceive  to  be  his  most  prominent  mental 
characteristic,  I  should  unhesitatingly  say, 
common  sense.  He  never  pretended  to  be 
profound  and  never  sought  to  make  a  display 
of  wisdom.  Yet  he  had  unbounded  confi- 
dence in  his  ability  to  see  the  manifold  bear- 
ings of  a  proposition,  and  even  to  gauge  the 
motives  of  those  who  made  it.  He  was  fully 
justified,  too,  in  that  confidence.  His  ability, 
however,  was  not  the  result  of  training.  It 
was  inherent  and  instinctive.  It  had  been 
enlarged  and  strengthened,  to  be  sure,  by 
constant  exercise,  and  performed  its  opera- 
tions in  the  clear  light  of  a  long  and  varied 
experience.  However  one  might  be  in  doubt 
as  to  what  his  ultimate  judgment  would  be 
in  a  particular  combination  of  circumstances, 
one  thing  could  be  determined  beforehand 
with  absolute  certainty,  he  would  not  make  a 
foolish  judgment.  Usually,  too,  it  might  be 
assumed,  his  conclusions  would  be  in  complete 
accord  with  the  general  opinions  of  mankind. 
He  had  that  rare  power  which  was  so  marked 
a  feature  in  the  character  of  Lincoln,  of  seeing 
things  with  the  eye  of  the  "plain  people." 
This  was  what  made  him  a  safe  and  strong 
leader.  Men  felt  that  in  following  him  they 
not  only  could  not  go  far  astray,  but  that 


JOHN    D.    W.    JOY  159 

wherever  they  went  they  would  be  sure  of  the 
approval  of  those  whom  they  sought  to  serve. 
I  should  say,  too,  that  he  had  great  clear- 
ness of  vision.  There  were  no  cobwebs  in  his 
mind.  There  was  no  fog  in  the  landscape 
on  which  he  looked.  He  could  untangle 
any  skein,  however  knotted  and  snarled. 
Nothing  baffled  his  analytical  power.  He 
could  detect  the  salient  points  of  the  most 
difficult  argument.  He  could  bring  order  out 
of  seeming  chaos.  He  could  make  his  own 
meaning  clear.  Nobody  could  misunderstand 
or  misinterpret  the  terms  in  which  he  sought 
to  give  expression  to  his  ideas.  His  letters 
were  models  of  conciseness  and  brevity,  and 
yet  he  seemed  to  say  all  that  was  necessary 
for  the  elucidation  of  a  subject.  This  no 
doubt  was  the  secret  of  his  wonderful  power 
of  turning  off  business,  of  settling  the  most 
complicated  problems  which  the  varied  situa- 
tions of  trade  presented,  by  a  single  word  or 
a  nod  of  the  head.  This  was  what  made  him 
a  master  in  drafting  constitutions  and  by-laws 
for  the  various  organizations  with  which  he 
was  connected.  I  have  known  but  one  or  two 
men  who  were  his  equals  in  quickness  and 
clearness  of  perception.  No  matter  how  grave 
and  delicate  the  matter  might  be,  his  decision 


l6o  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

was  almost  instantaneous  ;  and  if  he  took  the 
time  to  revise  his  reasonings  it  was  only,  in 
the  end,  to  reaffirm  his  first  impression. 

I  suppose  you  have  all  expected  me  to  men- 
tion his  fertility  of  resource.  There  seemed 
to  be  no  limit  to  his  ability  for  finding  ways 
of  doing  things,  and  the  harder  and  more 
desperate  the  situation  with  which  he  had  to 
deal  the  more  readily  his  mind  seemed  to  re- 
spond to  the  demand.  This  is  the  explana- 
tion of  his  success,  not  only  in  looking  after 
his  own  financial  interests,  but  in  dealing  with 
the  finances  of  parishes  and  other  organiza- 
tions with  which  he  was  connected,  in  secur- 
ing and  building  up  funds,  and  in  originating 
policies  of  administration  and  work.  In  a 
denominational  leader  this  quality  is  of  the 
rarest  order.  In  this  one  particular  we  shall 
probably  for  a  long  time  experience  the  great- 
est consciousness  of  our  loss,  for  it  is  not 
probable  that  in  this  respect  we.  shall  see  his 
like  again  for  a  whole  generation. 

Added  to  all  these  qualities  was  that  of  in- 
flexible decisiveness  of  judgment.  The  Ger- 
man people  are  fond  of  characterizing  the 
great  statesman  who  brought  together  the 
scattered  principalities  and  petty  kingdoms  of 
Germany  and  moulded  them  into  an  empire,  as 


JOHN    D.    W.    JOY  l6l 

the  Iron  Chancellor,  because  whatever  he  put 
his  hand  to,  he  accomplished.  When  he  had 
once  ' '  set  his  face  steadfastly  "  to  go  in  a 
certain  direction,  nothing  could  turn  him  aside 
or  cause  him  to  retrace  his  steps.  Indeed,  it 
sometimes  seemed  as  if  all  the  iron  of  the  mar- 
vellous race  which  he  typified  and  served  had 
been  taken  into  the  blood  of  that  foremost 
political  leader  of  modern  times.  But  I  am 
sure  that  all  of  you  who  knew  Mr.  Joy  in 
the  intimate  relations  of  business  or  denom- 
inational activity,  will  agree  with  me  that 
the  great  Chancellor  of  the  German  Empire, 
with  all  the  sturdiness  of  his  intellect  and 
the  inflexibility  of  his  purpose,  was  not  more 
sturdy  or  inflexible  than  he.  His  judg- 
ments were  iron.  When  after  careful  consid- 
eration he  had  once  made  up  his  mind  upon 
an  important  subject  you  could  no  more  move 
him  to  a  different  conclusion  than  you  could 
pluck  up  a  mountain  by  the  roots  and  cast  it 
into  the  sea.  This  was  not  always  comfort- 
able for  those  who  saw  things  in  a  different 
light  or  who  had  other  ends  to  gain.  But 
there  was  this  advantage  in  the  situation,  }'ou 
always  knew  where  to  find  him.  He  was  not 
two  faced.  He  never  sat  on  the  fence.  But 
he  walked  where  his  convictions  led  him, 


162  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES 

though  he  walked  alone.  Usually,  however, 
because  of  this  very  positiveness,  the  multi- 
tude flocked  to  his  standard  and  followed 
where  his  footsteps  pointed  the  way. 

This,  however,  does  not  complete  the  sum 
of  the  singular  combination  of  qualities  which 
made  him  a  most  extraordinary  personality. 
He  had  that  poise  of  judgment  which  I  have 
rarely  seen  matched.  He  could  not  be  sur- 
prised or  stampeded  into  a  course  of  action 
which  subsequently  his  reason  would  not  ap- 
prove. When  he  had  delivered  his  ultimatum 
he  could  wait.  ' '  L,et  the  squirrel  sit, "  was  a 
frequent  expression  with  him  when  he  had 
made  a  business  proposition  which  his  corre- 
spondent had  not  seen  fit  to  accept.  He 
knew  that  if  he  failed  in  one  line  of  effort  he 
could  take  up  another,  and  moreover  he  was 
persuaded  that,  if  his  judgment  was  well 
founded,  men  would  come  to  it  sooner  or  later. 
In  the  affairs  of  the  Church  he  4  had  none  of 
that  feverishness  of  spirit  which  always  con- 
veys the  impression  that  it  is  now  or  never. 
If  there  is  a  dollar  in  hand  it  must  be  spent 
now  or  the  chance  of  spending  it  to  any  profit 
will  be  gone.  If  there  is  a  policy  which  seems 
to  invite  effort  it  must  be  put  in  force  at  once 
or  it  will  be  useless  to  imagine  that  it  can  ever 


JOHN    D.    W.    JOY  163 

be  adopted  in  the  future.  He  knew  that  the 
Church  would  abide.  He  was  content  to  dig 
deep  for  great  foundations,  to  make  provision 
for  a  time  of  need  that  is  yet  far  ahead  and  to 
carefully  devise  and  mature  the  plans  which 
those  coming  after  us  may  take  up  and  make 
effective.  This  seer-like  and  prophetic  pre- 
vision, this  clear-sighted  forecasting  of  ex- 
igencies that  are  yet  to  be,  this  ability  to  wait 
with  serenity  and  unshrinking  faith  for  the 
fulfilment  of  the  decrees  of  God  in  the  affairs 
of  any  organization  divine  or  human,  is  the 
grandest  legacy  that  a  layman  has  yet  given  to 
the  Universalist  Church.  For  this  mighty 
contribution,  generations  that^are  yet  unborn 
will  rise  up  to  call  him  blessed. 

Such,  I  am  deeply  conscious,  is  a  very  im- 
perfect and  incomplete  account  of  a  few  of 
the  actions  and  qualities  which  have  served 
to  render  our  loss  in  the  death  of  Mr.  Joy, 
irreparable.  What  shall  we  do,  then?  We 
may  shed  a  tear  by  his  new  sepulchre.  We 
may  cast  a  wreath  of  affection  on  his  grave. 
We  may  give  utterance  to  our  sorrow  in  elo- 
quent phrase.  But  it  is  not  tears,  or  flowers, 
or  words  of  eulogy  that  he  would  desire.  If 
he  could  speak  from  his  place  of  silent  repose 
to-day,  he  would  certainly  assure  us  that  he 


164  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

does  not  want  a  funeral  tribute,  that  the  faith 
which  inspired  him  in  his  youth,  guided  him 
in  his  manhood  and  solaced  him  in  his  death, 
is  infinitely  more  precious  to  him  than  any 
contribution  that  can  be  laid  upon  his  bier, 
and  that  the  Church,  through  which  that  faith 
is  proclaimed  to  the  world,  is  dearer  than  all 
earthly  memorials  whatever.  If  he  were  here 
to-day  he  would  say:  "Brethren,  serve  the 
Church,  be  loyal  to  it,  labor  for  it,  believe  in 
it,  have  patience,  have  faith,  and  wait  for  God 
to  give  the  increase  to  your  efforts,  as  he  surely 
will  in  his  own  good  time." 


THE  POLICY  OF  EXPANSION 

THE  POLICY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  IN  THE  ACQUI- 
SITION OF  TERRITORY,  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE 
TOWER  CROSS  SOCIETY,  FEBRUARY,  1899. 

I  count  it  a  privilege  and  honor  to  be  asked 
by  the  young  gentlemen  of  the  Tower  Cross 
Society  to  open  this  course  of  lectures  on  vital 
themes.  It  is  a  most  significant  and  hopeful 
sign,  that  not  only  the  students  of  this  College, 
but  of  all  the  colleges  in  the  land,  are  inter- 
ested in  such  matters.  It  is  the  hope  of  the 
nation,  the  hope  of  the  world.  Nothing  so 
conclusively  justifies  the  existence  of  the  in- 
stitutions of  the  higher  learning  here  and  else- 
where. Indeed,  when  we  consider  the  history 
of  these  institutions,  no  conviction  is  borne  in 
upon  us  with  greater  force  than  that  the  most 
important  movements  of  modern  times  have 
had  their  genesis  and  often  their  organization 
in  these  retreats  and  nurseries  of  the  youthful 
mind.  Not  to  go  farther  back,  I  may  mention 
the  "  Godly  Club"  of  John  Wesley,  out  of 
which  grew  the  magnificent  Methodist  Church 
with  its  world-wide  message  of  free  grace  and 
its  unconquerable  missionary  spirit ;  the  Trac- 


1 66  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

torian  Movement,  fostered  by  the  great  names 
of  Pusey  and  Newman  and  Keble,  which 
breathed  anew  the  breath  of  life  into  the  dry 
bones  of  the  English  Church  ;  the  fundamen- 
tal principles  of  American  liberty  which  were 
wrought  out  in  the  minds  of  Samuel  and  John 
Adams  while  they  were  yet  undergraduates 
in  Harvard  College  ;  the  fervid  spirit  in  which 
the  New  England  colleges  from  1850  to  1860 
took  up  the  discussion  of  the  anti-slavery 
question  and  furnished  the  creative  force  of 
that  public  opinion  which  decreed  that  the 
nation  should  no  longer  exist  ' '  half  slave  and 
half  free."  For  myself  I  believe  with  all  my 
heart  that  these  institutions  are  just  as  potent 
as  ever  to  forecast  and  direct  the  future  des- 
tinies of  civilization. 

Turning  to  our  own  country  to-day,  there 
is  no  question  of  greater  moment  than  that 
which  pertains  to  the  position  of  the  American 
Republic  as  a  great  world  power  of  the  future. 
Alexis  de  Tocqueville,  the  most  astute  foreign 
observer  of  American  institutions  who  has 
ever  put  his  observations  in  writing, — with 
the  possible  exception  of  Mr.  Bryce, — in  1835, 
closed  one  of  the  most  brilliant  chapters  of  his 
work  on  Democracy  in  America  with  the  fol- 
lowing paragraph. 


THE  POUCY  OF  EXPANSION          167 

(<  There  are  at  the  present  time  two  great 
nations  in  the  world,  which  started  from  dif- 
ferent points,  but  seem  to  tend  towards  the 
same  end.  I  allude  to  the  Russians  and  the 
Americans.  Both  of  them  have  grown  up  un- 
noticed ;  and  whilst  the  attention  of  mankind 
was  directed  elsewhere,  they  have  suddenly 
placed  themselves  in  the  front  rank  among 
the  nations,  and  the  world  welcomed  their 
existence  and  their  greatness  at  almost  the 
same  time.  All  other  nations  seem  to  have 
nearly  reached  their  natural  limits,  and  they 
have  only  to  maintain  their  power  ;  but  these 
are  still  in  the  act  of  growth.  All  the  others 
have  stopped,  or  continue  to  advance  with 
extreme  difficulty  ;  these  alone  are  proceeding 
with  ease  and  celerity  along  a  path  to  which 
no  limit  can  be  perceived.  The  American 
struggles  against  the  obstacles  which  nature 
opposes  to  him  ;  the  adversaries  of  the  Russian 
are  men.  The  former  controls  the  wilderness 
and  savage  life  ;  the  latter,  civilization  with 
all  its  arms.  The  conquests  of  the  American 
are,  therefore,  gained  by  the  ploughshare ; 
those  of  the  Russian,  by  the  sword.  The 
Anglo-American  relies  upon  personal  interest 
to  accomplish  his  ends,  and  gives  free  scope 
to  the  unguided  strength  and  common  sense 


1 68  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

of  the  people;  the  Russian  centres  all  the  au- 
thority of  society  in  a  single  arm.  The  prin- 
cipal instrument  of  the  former  is  freedom  ;  of 
the  latter,  servitude.  Their  starting  point  is 
different,  and  their  courses  are  not  the  same  ; 
yet  each  of  them  seems  marked  out  by  the 
will  of  Heaven  to  sway  the  destinies  of  half 
the  Globe." 

If  the  great  French  publicist  were  alive  to- 
day we  cannot  conceive  that  it  would  be  pos- 
sible for  him  to  find  language  in  which  to  de- 
scribe more  accurately  the  political  situation 
of  the  world.  The  only  modification  that  it 
would  seem  to  demand  springs  from  the  fact 
that  Great  Britain,  during  the  sixty  years 
since  these  words  were  penned,  has  been  push- 
ing her  dominion  with  striking  success  in 
various  parts  of  the  world  and  is  still  engaged 
in  enlarging  the  borders  of  her  power.  Some 
of  the  wisest  of  English  statesmen  have  fore- 
seen that  she  has  nearly  reached  the  limit  of 
her  growth.  They  have  even  thought  that 
ere  long  some,  perhaps  most,  of  her  colonies 
may  prefer  to  walk  alone,  or  seek  alliance 
with  other  nations ;  and  if  the  time  should 
ever  come  in  which  England  should  be  bereft 
of  her  chief  colonies,  it  is  not  difficult  to  imag- 


THK    POUCY   OF   EXPANSION  169 

ine  what  her  case  would  be  among  the  great 
powers  of  the  earth. 

Recent  events  have  turned  the  attention  of 
mankind  more  sharply  than  ever  towards  the 
American  Republic.  In  all  quarters  men  are 
asking  what  is  the  purpose  and  tendency  of 
this  great  nation  which  has  just  startled  the 
world  with  its  energy  and  prowess  on  land 
and  sea.  The  Americans  themselves  are  ask- 
ing what  use  they  are  to  make  of  their  new- 
found capacities.  Are  they,  too,  like  the 
older  nations  of  Europe,  to  broaden  their 
phylacteries  and  enlarge  their  dominion  ?  Is 
that  freedom,  which  philosophic  observers  of 
our  institutions  hitherto  have  recognized  as 
the  "  principal  instrument  "  of  our  growth,  to 
follow  the  flag  into  new  lands  and  among 
strange  peoples  ?  The  answer  to  this  question 
can  be  given  only  in  our  history.  Patrick 
Henry  said,  "  I  know  of  no  way  of  judging  of 
the  future  but  by  the  past. ' '  Precedent  is  the 
foundation  principle  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment. The  continuity  of  historic  events  can  be 
broken  only  by  revolution.  Accordingly  the 
most  important  question  which  the  student  of 
our  time,  anxious  that  the  ship  of  state  shall 
be  steered  aright  as  she  enters  the  unknown 
sea  of  the  generations  that  are  yet  to  be,  is 


1 70  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

what  has  been  the  policy  of  the  United 
States,  from  its  earliest  beginnings,  in  the 
acquisition  of  territory  ? 

The  fact  is  that  there  has  been  an  immense 
increase  of  our  domain.  Within  less  than  a 
hundred  years  from  the  adoption  of  the  federal 
constitution  our  boundaries  were  enlarged  in 
more  than  imperial  proportions.  On  the  fourth 
of  March,  1789,  eleven  states  had  ratified  the 
constitution.  They  were  the  following:  Dela- 
ware, Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  Georgia, 
Connecticut,  Massachusetts,  Maryland,  South 
Carolina,  New  Hampshire,  Virginia,  and  New 
York.  Subsequently,  North  Carolina,  Rhode 
Island,  and  Vermont  gave  in  their  adhesion. 
Fourteen  states  constituted  the  United  States 
of  America  as  it  was  one  hundred  and  ten 
years  ago  when  it  first  began  to  do  business 
as  a  nation  under  the  constitution.  The  total 
area  of  the  colonies  in  revolt  against  Great 
Britain,  whose  independence  was  acknowl- 
edged in  1783,  was  a  little  over  eight  hundred 
and  twenty  thousand  square  miles.  This  was 
more  than  doubled  by  the  Louisiana  pur- 
chase. The  annexation  of  Texas  added 
nearly  half  as  much  more,  and  the  Oregon 
treaty  a  further  area  equally  large.  The 
Mexican  treaties  gave  us  more  than  five  hun- 


THE    POUCY   OF   EXPANSION  171 

dred  and  fifty  thousand  square  miles,  and  the 
Alaska  purchase  upward  of  five  hundred  and 
fourteen  thousand  square  miles.  So  that  in 
1867,  the  year  in  which  Russia  transferred 
the  whole  of  her  American  possessions  to  the 
United  States,  the  dominions  over  which  the 
flag  of  our  Union  floated  without  dispute,  in 
less  than  eighty  years  from  the  adoption  of 
the  federal  constitution,  had  increased  in  va- 
rious ways,  by  conquest,  by  treaty,  and  by 
purchase,  from  eight  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  square  miles  to  more  than  three 
million  five  hundred  and  eighty  thousand 
square  miles,  or  more  than  four  fold.  Using 
the  words  with  which  Daniel  Webster  closed 
his  seventh  of  March  speech,  in  1850,  we  can 
say  with  even  more  truth  than  he :  "It  has 
received  a  vast  addition  of  territory.  Large 
before,  the  country  has  now,  by  recent  events, 
become  vastly  larger.  This  republic  now  ex- 
tends, with  a  vast  breadth,  across  the  whole 
continent.  The  two  great  seas  of  the  world 
wash  the  one  and  the  other  shore.  We  real- 
ize on  a  mighty  scale  the  beautiful  description 
of  the  ornamental  edging  of  the  buckler  of 
Achilles— 


172  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

"  Now  the  broad  shield  complete  the  artist  crowned 
With  his  last  hand,  and  poured  the  ocean  round  ; 
In  living  silver  seemed  the  waves  to  roll, 
And  beat    the  buckler's  verge,   and    bound   the 
whole." 

When  we  remember  that  there  were  those 
in  the  beginning — grave  and  learned  states- 
men and  pure  patriots — and  have  been  in 
every  generation,  who  have  held  that  it  was 
no  part  of  the  function  of  the  states  to  acquire 
territory,  and  that  the  powers  of  the  constitu- 
tion are  imperilled  by  every  acquisition,  it  is 
instructive  to  recall  the  circumstances  under 
which  these  various  acquisitions  have  been 
accomplished. 

The  first  and  greatest  addition  of  all  was 
secured,  in  1803,  under  the  Presidency  and 
largely  through  the  agency  of  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son, most  powerfully  aided  by  Livingston,  our 
minister  to  France.  In  this  he  assumed  a  re- 
sponsibility that  has  scarcely  ever  been  par- 
alleled by  any  of  his  successors.  In  common 
with  many  of  the  wisest  statesmen  of  his  time, 
he  doubted  whether  the  constitution  gave  ade- 
quate warrant  for  the  acquisition  of  territory  on 
any  considerable  scale,  and  still  further  whether 
the  President  had  the  right  to  take  the  initia- 
tive in  such  a  case.  But  looking  at  the  situ- 


THE  POLICY  OF  EXPANSION          173 

ation  of  the  infant  states,  stretched  along  the 
Atlantic  seaboard  from  Nova  Scotia  to  the 
Florida  line,  skirting  the  St.  I/awrence  and 
touching  the  Great  L,akes,  he  perceived  that, 
in  the  developments  of  the  not  distant  future, 
in  order  to  use  to  their  fullest  extent  the  great 
interior  water  ways  that  lay  wholly  within 
United  States  territory,  it  would  be  absolutely 
necessary  to  control  the  outlet  of  the  Missis- 
sippi. 

The  compelling  causes  to  that  brave  and 
brilliant  act  of  statesmanship  were  both  com- 
mercial and  political.  The  industrial  ac- 
tivity and  commercial  prosperity  of  the  whole 
country  were  largely  dependent  upon  this  step. 
The  farmer  could  not  bring  the  cultivation  of 
the  soil  to  the  highest  point  of  productiveness, 
the  mechanic  could  not  pursue  his  calling 
with  the  assurance  of  full  remuneration,  the 
tradesman  could  not  effect  the  interchange  of 
commodities  on  the  most  economical  basis,  if 
the  gateway  to  the  Gulf  should  be  closed. 
But  there  was  a  still  more  portentous  reason 
than  that.  Great  Britain  had  only  just  reluc- 
tantly relinquished  her  grasp  upon  her  rebel- 
lious colonies.  She  had  not  yet  recovered 
from  her  resentment  and  shame.  In  the  great 
conflict  that  she  was  then  waging  with  France 


174  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

on  the  ocean  and  which  she  was  soon  to  wage 
on  the  land,  it  was  not  unlikely  that  she  would 
seek  to  break  the  grasp  of  her  enemy  upon 
her  North  American  possessions  and  set  up 
her  power  there  in  a  way  to  menance  and  per- 
haps destroy  the  independence  of  the  United 
States.  Few  statesmen  have  ever  had  occa- 
sion to  act  under  a  graver  compulsion  of  need, 
or  to  a  grander  and  more  far-reaching  result. 
Still,  it  was  fortunate  for  America  that  the 
presidential  office  was  filled  by  a  statesman  of 
the  wisdom  and  courage  of  Jefferson. 

It  was  equally  fortunate  that  the  man,  who, 
as  the  First  Consul,  guided  the  destinies  of 
France,  was  the  far-seeing,  astute  and  auda- 
cious Napoleon.  At  the  period  which  we 
are  considering,  the  French  settlements  were 
scarcely  less  important  than  those  of  the  Eng- 
lish on  American  soil.  During  the  reign  of 
Louis  XIV,  the  French  government,  acting 
under  the  impulse  of  colonial  enterprise,  or 
what  might  be  termed  in  our  day  imperial 
expansion,  had  carried  on  a  systematic  ex- 
ploration reaching  from  the  mouth  of  the  St. 
Lawrence  up  the  Great  Lakes  and  down  the 
Illinois  and  the  Mississippi  to  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  itself.  Great  companies  of  French 
priests,  with  the  blessings  of  mother  church 


THE    POLICY   OF    EXPANSION  175 

upon  them  and  with  a  devotion  and  self- 
denial  almost  unexampled  in  Christian  annals, 
had  set  themselves  the  task  of  teaching  letters 
and  religion  to  the  wild  denizens  of  the  prairie 
and  forest.  The  foundation  of  a  mighty  civ- 
ilization was  laid  with  toilsome  patience. 
Owing,  however,  to  the  superior  force  of 
Great  Britain,  France  was  unable,  for  a  time 
at  least,  to  retain  her  hold  here  upon  her  great 
continental  domain.  As  a  result  of  the  war 
of  1754,  in  which  Washington  received  his 
soldierly  training,  France  ceded  Louisiana  to 
Spain  and  relinquished  Canada  to  England. 
Spain,  however,  then  as  ever,  was  only  a  step- 
mother to  her  acquisitions.  Partly,  therefore, 
in  response  to  a  sense  of  obligation  to  those 
of  her  own  kindred  and  tongue,  France,  in 
1800,  secured  by  treaty  the  retrocession  of 
that  vast  province  of  nearly  nine  hundred 
thousand  square  miles.  But  she  was  not 
long  to  retain  her  power  over  it.  In  the 
state-craft  of  the  great  Napoleon  there  were 
other  and  nobler  uses  for  it.  Not  only  was 
its  possession  essential  to  the  well  being  and 
prosperity  of  the  young  republic  of  the  West, 
for  which  France  had  conceived  an  affection 
that  has  never  yet  been  broken,  but  Napoleon 
saw  the  opportunity  in  the  move  he  was  about 


1 76  OCCASION  AT,   ADDRESSES 

to  make,  to  thwart  the  schemes  of  his  tradi- 
tional enemy  and  put  a  curb  upon  his  ambi- 
tions that  would  last  as  long  as  the  world. 

Kdward  Everett  in  a  speech  delivered  at 
the  Revere  House,  September  25,  1861,  on 
the  occasion  of  a  banquet  to  Prince  Napoleon, 
gave  a  most  eloquent  and  graphic  picture  of 
this  masterly  act  of  Napoleon.  "  The  treaty 
of  the  3oth  of  September,  1800,  wise  and  wel- 
come as  it  was,  in  restoring  peace  between 
the  two  countries,  was  far  surpassed  in  im- 
portance by  that  imperial  stroke  of  policy, 
the  cession  of  Louisiana.  Originally  discov- 
ered under  the  powerful  monarch  whose  name 
it  perpetuates  in  the  western  hemisphere, 
transferred  to  Spain  at  the  close  of  the  Seven 
Years'  War,  recovered  by  the  First  Consul  in 
1800,  by  the  treaty  of  San  Ildefonso,  the 
youthful  hero  conceived  the  plan  of  making 
Louisiana  the  basis  of  a  colonial  power  which 
.should  balance  that  of  England.  The  ap- 
proaching renewal  of  hostilities  by  the  rup- 
ture of  the  treaty  of  Amiens  rendering  it 
doubtful  whether  he  should  be  able  to  hold 
Louisiana  against  the  naval  power  of  Great 
Britain,  in  pursuance  of  that  great  idea  which 
runs  through  the  whole  policy  of  France  to- 
wards this  country,  that  of  confirming  the  'uni- 


THE    POLICY   OF    EXPANSION  177 

versal  political  equilibrium  '  by  the  growth 
of  a  great  commercial  and  naval  power  in  the 
West,  the  First  Consul  announced  to  his  as- 
tonished Council,  on  Easter  Sunday  of  1803, 
that  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  cede  the 
whole  of  Louisiana  to  the  United  States.  The 
deed  followed  up  the  word,  and  the  treaty  was 
signed  on  the  3oth  of  April.  By  this  truly 
Napoleonic  stroke  of  the  highest  state  wis- 
dom and  the  most  superb  political  courage, 
the  whole  of  this  vast  province,  a  world  in  it- 
self, from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  forty-ninth 
parallel  of  latitude  and  from  the  Mississippi 
to  the  Pacific,  all  passed  to  the  possession  of 
the  United  States ;  illustrious  record  of  the 
profound  convictions  of  Napoleon  that  the  in- 
terest of  France  and  the  equilibrium  of  Europe 
require  the  growth,  consolidation  and  perma- 
nence of  the  American  Union." 

We  have,  then,  the  reasons,  both  from  the 
American  and  French  point  of  view,  for  the 
first,  the  greatest  and  the  most  magnificent  of 
all  our  acquisitions.  Had  there  not  been  a 
Jefferson,  with  wisdom  to  forecast  the  future 
and  boldness  to  execute  in  the  time  of  need, 
and  had  there  not  been  a  Napoleon  who  knew 
how  to  be  magnanimous  to  a  rival  as  well  as 
relentless  to  a  foe,  we  might  still  have  been 


178  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

shivering  on  our  Atlantic  seaboard,  shut  up 
between  the  Alleghanies  and  the  sea.  But 
there  were  not  wanting  those  in  both  hemi- 
spheres who  thought  the  transaction  one  of 
madness  and  folly.  In  the  old  world  men 
thought  that  Napoleon  had  exchanged  an 
empire  for  a  song  and  shut  the  door  forever 
to  the  possibility  of  colonial  expansion.  On 
our  own  soil  there  were  those  who  said  boldly 
that  Jefferson  had  set  his  heel  in  contempt 
upon  the  constitution  of  his  country,  had  dug 
the  grave  of  democratic  institutions  and  ex- 
tinguished the  possibility  of  a  great  repub- 
lican commonwealth.  But  the  deed  was  done 
and  for  nearly  a  century  the  nation  has  been 
reaping  the  fruits  thereof. 

The  case  of  Florida  was  different.  In  some 
respects  it  would  seem  as  if  the  absorption  of 
Florida  would  be  a  logically  necessary  result 
of  the  acquirement  of  Louisiana.  The  two 
territories  were  in  closest  juxtaposition.  The 
relations  between  the  populations  of  each 
were  intimate  and  constant.  Still,  there  does 
not  appear  to  have  been  any  very  eager  desire, 
either  on  the  part  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  or  the  authorities  at  Washington,  to 
make  a  further  expansion  by  the  addition  of 
Spanish  territory.  Strangely  enough  the  de- 


THE  POLICY  OF  EXPANSION         179 

sire  that  the  United  States  should  secure 
Florida  was  British  rather  than  American, 
lyord  Castlereagh,  who  in  more  than  one 
instance  influenced  the  diplomatic  policy  of 
America,  was  eager  and  insistent  that  the 
United  States  should  take  steps  to  secure  that 
prize  from  Spain. 

Jackson,  however,  thought  otherwise.  He 
believed  that  England  was  putting  every  pos- 
sible obstacle  in  the  way,  and  that  she  was 
even  maintaining  spies  and  intriguers  to  pre- 
vent the  consummation  which  a  treaty  between 
this  country  and  Spain  would  be  sure  to  effect. 
Indeed,  Jackson  himself  was  about  the  only 
person  in  this  part  of  the  world  who  was  filled 
with  a  truly  passionate  desire  to  add  this  bit  of 
Spanish  domain  to  the  territory  of  the  United 
States.  He,  however,  was  ready  to  go  to  any 
length  in  such  an  enterprise.  He  would  not 
stop  at  usurpation  and  outrage.  Having  been 
appointed  to  the  command  of  the  forces  in 
Georgia,  charged  with  keeping  order  among 
the  Indians  and  negroes  on  the  border  line, 
he  wrote  to  President  Monroe  :  ' '  Let  it  be 
signified  to  me  through  any  channel  that  the 
possession  of  Florida  would  be  desirable  to 
the  United  States  and  in  sixty  days  it  will  be 
accomplished."  Even  without  orders,  or  an 


l8o  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

intimation  from  the  government,  he  violated 
every  principle  of  international  obligation  and 
gave  abundant  reason  for  hostile  resentment 
by  the  King  of  Spain.  But  Ferdinand  had 
all  the  wars  on  his  hands  in  this  hemisphere 
that  he  could  manage.  The  South  American 
provinces  of  Spain  and  Mexico  were  all  in  re- 
volt at  once,  and  he  did  not  care  to  increase 
the  complication  by  a  war  with  the  United 
States.  He  showed  little  resentment  for  the 
capture  of  Florida  fortresses,  for  the  encroach- 
ment upon  Spanish  possessions,  for  the  over- 
turning of  Spanish  authority  at  St.  Marks 
and  Pensacola  and  for  the  violence  done  to 
Spanish  subjects.  Even  when  a  treaty  had 
been  drafted  and  executed,  in  1819,  by  the 
United  States  he  delayed  to  put  his  own 
hand  to  it  for  two  years,  though  urged  to  it 
by  the  representatives  of  nearly  all  the  lead- 
ing powers  of  Europe. 

Thus  another  scene  was  enacted  in  the 
drama  of  territorial  expansion,  and  along  with 
it,  had  been  created  an  ' '  earth  hunger, ' '  as 
the  English  call  it,  that  has  not  yet  been 
satiated.  Not  until  we  examine  the  subject 
with  care  do  we  realize  to  what  an  extent 
the  American  people  have  been  swayed  by 
a  longing  to  enlarge  their  boundaries.  No 


THE   POLICY   OF   EXPANSION  l8l 

doubt  Andrew  Jackson  was  the  chief  instru- 
ment, humanly  speaking,  in  creating  this 
hunger.  We  even  find  John  Quincy  Adams, 
as  early  as  1828,  casting  wistful  glances 
towards  Texas  and  offering  to  purchase  that 
and  the  portions  of  Mexico  which  we  now 
know  as  New  Mexico  and  California,  for  one 
million  dollars.  We  can  hardly  suppose  him 
to  have  been  aware  of  the  motive  by  which 
annexation  was  soon  to  become  the  rallying 
cry  of  all  who  desired  the  perpetuity  of  human 
slavery.  The  history  of  the  movement  which 
not  only  brought  Texas  into  the  Union,  but 
led  to  the  Mexican  war,  is  one  of  the 
darkest  chapters  in  our  history — one  of  the 
darkest  chapters  in  the  history  of  modern 
times. 

By  a  strange  oversight,  which  even  the 
greedy  eye  of  Jackson  failed  to  detect,  the 
westerly  boundary  of  Florida,  in  the  treaty 
with  Spain  was  drawn  at  the  Sabine  River. 
It  might  just  as  well,  in  those  days  when  all 
areas  in  this  country  were  vague  and  indefi- 
nite, have  been  placed  at  the  Rio  Grande. 
In  that  case  Texas  would  have  been  ours 
without  a  struggle.  But  the  diplomatists 
who  shaped  the  treaty  were  uncanny,  bun- 
gling and  shortsighted.  Their  work  was 


1 82  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

scarcely  completed  before  it  was  realized  that 
tlie  borders  assigned  to  the  institution  of 
slavery  in  view  of  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
were  too  restricted.  If  the  slave  states 
were  to  maintain  a  proper  equilibrium  with 
the  free  states  of  the  North  they  must  have 
more  room  for  expansion.  Mexico,  just 
emerging  from  her  struggle  with  Spain  for 
independence,  with  a  form  of  government 
unintelligently  copied  from  the  government 
of  the  United  States,  her  people  wholly  un- 
prepared to  appreciate  or  use  their  newly 
acquired  freedom,  was  too  weak  to  defend 
and  hold  the  vast  domain  of  Texas  and  upper 
California.  When  Van  Buren,  therefore,  in 
1829,  raised  the  offer  of  John  Quincy  Adams 
from  one  million  to  five  million  dollars,  which 
was  to  wrest  from  the  grasp  of  Mexico  her 
grandest  and  fairest  possessions,  the  storm 
had  really  begun. 

One  part  of  the  plans  of  the  annexationists 
was  to  stir  up  revolt  from  within.  If  they 
could  induce  Texas  to  break  away  from  the 
parent  country  and  set  up  an  independent 
government  of  her  own  they  could  by  a  quiet 
process  of  annexation  accomplish  what  they 
might  have  great  difficulty  in  accomplishing 
otherwise,  especially  in  view  of  the  rising  senti- 


THE   POIvICY   OF   EXPANSION  183 

ment  of  the  North  in  opposition  to  slavery. 
That  doubtless  was  the  motive  of  Jackson — 
who,  coming  from  the  slave  holding  state  of 
Tennessee,  was  in  sympathy  with  the  pur- 
poses of  slavery — to  prompt  that  rather  un- 
savory adventurer,  Sam  Houston,  to  emigrate 
to  Texas,  to  rally  the  people  under  a  revolu- 
tionary standard,  and  effectually  secure  their 
permanent  separation  from  Mexico.  This 
task  was  the  easier  because  the  great  body  of 
the  settlers  in  Texas  were  of  the  Anglo- 
American  stock  and  had  nothing  in  common 
with  the  population  of  Mexico,  and  because 
Mexico  herself  had  shown  little  wisdom  in 
dealing  with  the  uneasy  settlers  in  the  terri- 
tory over  which  she  was  determined  to  main- 
tain her  power  at  all  hazards.  Houston 
gathered  an  army  and  was  appointed  to  the 
chief  command.  This  force  was  able  for  a 
a  time  to  keep  the  Mexicans  out  of  the  terri- 
tory. But  in  1836,  Santa  Anna,  the  bravest 
and  most  brilliant  Mexican  soldier  of  his  time, 
led  an  army  of  seventy-five  hundred  men  into 
Texas  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  about  the 
submission  of  the  people.  At  an  opportune 
moment,  when  his  forces  were  divided,  Hous- 
ton fell  upon  him  at  San  Jacinto,  secured  a 
complete  victory  and  took  Santa  Anna  him- 


1 84  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

self  prisoner.  This  ended  the  conflict  and 
resulted  in  the  independence  of  Texas.  But 
although  the  United  States  recognized  her 
independence  on  the  last  day  of  President 
Jackson's  official  term,  in  1837,  owing  to  the 
growing  opposition  of  the  Whig  Party  and 
the  vigorous  protests  of  the  anti-slavery 
people  of  the  North,  the  coveted  annexation 
was  not  consummated  until  after  the  inaugura- 
tion of  President  Polk,  in  1845. 

If  this  were  all,  there  would  not  be  much 
room  at  this  day  for  criticism.  For  though  the 
methods  by  which  the  result  was  reached  were 
high-handed  and  unscrupulous,  they  were 
perhaps  in  keeping  with  the  temper  of  the 
times  and  with  the  lawless  character  of  the 
people  of  our  south-western  frontier ;  and 
though  the  motive  of  those  who  were  the 
chief  promoters  of  annexation  was  to  secure 
new  territory  out  of  which  more  slave  states  in 
the  future  might  be  carved,  yet,  after  all,  they 
were  but  the  instruments  of  a  natural  process, 
hastening  a  little  the  inevitable  ' '  logic  of 
events."  Texas,  not  only  by  her  climate  and 
her  soil,  but  by  her  geographical  position  be- 
tween the  Sabine  and  the  Rio  Grande,  could 
not  long  be  separated  from  the  imperial  tract 
embraced  in  the  Louisiana  purchase.  When 


THE  POLICY  OF  EXPANSION          185 

Jefferson  completed  his  agreement  with  Na- 
poleon he,  in  effect,  took  over  the  title  deeds 
to  Texas  as  a  part  of  the  large  domain  which 
we  have  known  as  the  Louisiana  purchase. 

But  the  greed  of  the  annexationists  was  not 
satisfied  by  even  this  mighty  acquisition. 
Already  their  eyes  were  on  the  Pacific  ocean 
and  the  bay  of  San  Francisco.  Already  they 
had  visions  of  other  states  dedicated  to  slav- 
ery between  the  Rocky  mountains  and  the 
farther  sea.  Already  they  had  formed  their 
plans  to  compass  their  designs  by  outrages,  in 
comparison  with  which  those  attending  the 
revolt  of  Texas  were  pale  and  trivial.  Al- 
though the  rallying  cry  of  the  Democratic 
Party  in  the  campaign  which  raised  James 
K.  Polk  to  the  presidency,  was  the  annexa- 
tion of  Texas,  it  was  an  open  secret  that  the 
real  purpose  was  a  contest  with  Mexico,  by 
which  Upper  California  and  New  Mexico 
might  be  added  to  the  national  domain. 
Polk  understood  perfectly  the  purport  of  his 
election,  and  immediately  upon  his  inaugura- 
tion proceeded  to  put  the  demand  of  his 
party  into  execution.  Without  waiting  to 
take  the  advice  of  Congress  he  ordered  Gen- 
eral Taylor  to  take  up  a  position  upon  terri- 
tory which  Mexico  had  never  formally  relin- 


1 86  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

quished,  and  to  menace  the  dominions  beyond 
the  Rio  Grande.  An  unauthorized  scrim- 
mage between  a  body  of  Mexican  dragoons 
and  a  small  party  of  American  soldiers,  was 
deemed  a  sufficient  occasion  for  a  declaration 
of  war.  Of  course  there  could  be  but  one 
issue  to  such  a  conflict.  It  was  written  in  the 
book  of  fate  that  Mexico  must  lose  in  the 
struggle.  A  great  and  powerful  nation  had 
set  itself  in  battle  array  against  her.  Though 
her  people  were  righting  for  home  and  liberty 
and  fatherland,  they  were  no  match  for  the 
trained  and  efficient  soldiery  of  the  United 
States.  So  far  as  the  latter  country  was  con- 
cerned it  was  only  a  question  of  a  certain 
amount  of  time  and  the  expenditure  of  a  cer- 
tain quantity  of  blood  and  treasure.  The 
end  came  as  might  have  been  predicted,  by 
the  entrance  of  General  Scott  into  the  city  of 
Mexico.  By  the  treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidal- 
go, concluded  on  the  2nd  of  February,  1848, 
California  and  all  the  possessions  of  Mexico 
between  that  territory  and  Texas,  passed  to 
the  United  States. 

No  high-minded  and  self-respecting  Amer- 
ican can  read  this  story  of  outrage  and  usur- 
pation without  feeling  a  blush  of  shame  rising 
to  his  temples.  Still,  when  we  think  how 


THE)   POLICY   OF   EXPANSION  187 

transient  and  short  lived  were  the  sordid  mo- 
tives and  the  selfish  intrigues,  how  the  states- 
men and  politicians  who  were  the  parties  to 
this  infamy  have  gone  to  their  merited  obloquy 
— "unwept,  unhonored  and  unsung" — how 
the  machinations  of  the  apologists  and  de- 
fenders of  human  slavery  have  been  circum- 
vented and  brought  to  naught  by  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  and  the  dedication  of  every 
rood  of  American  soil  to  freedom  forever ; 
when  we  think  of  the  teeming  populations 
that  have  come  into  what  were  great  silences, 
unbroken  by  the  presence  of  man  since  the 
morning  of  creation,  of  the  golden  channels 
that  have  been  opened,  of  the  mighty  indus- 
tries that  have  sprung  up,  of  the  civilization, 
prosperity  and  peace  that  have  followed  in  the 
wilderness  track  of  bloodshed  and  war,  we  are 
constrained  to  believe  that  this  is  one  of  the 
instances  in  which  the  Great  Ruler  of  human 
events  turns  aside  the  transient  purpose  and 
"  maketh  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  him." 

Simultaneously  with  the  plans  for  the  en- 
largement of  the  national  boundaries  by  the 
purchase  of  Florida,  the  annexation  of  Texas, 
and  the  conquest  of  California,  there  had  been 
rising  the  question  in  many  minds  as  to  the 
possession  of  Oregon.  The  constant  west- 


1 88  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

ward  drift  of  population  brought  this  ques- 
tion more  and  more  into  the  foreground. 
Even  Jefferson,  after  his  eyes  were  open  to 
the  full  significance  of  his  masterly  achieve- 
ment in  doubling  the  area  of  the  United 
States,  began  to  have  visions  of  people  filling 
the  great  unoccupied  spaces  of  the  country 
and  pressing  forward  in  an  unbroken  proces- 
sion westward  over  the  summits  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  finding  no  rest  in  their  cease- 
less movement  until  they  had  reached  the 
Pacific  shores.  Accordingly,  he  asked  from 
Congress  an  appropriation  to  explore  that  far- 
off  region,  which  being  granted,  he  sent  I/ewis 
and  Clark  on  their  immortal  expedition  up 
the  Missouri  River,  over  the  mountains  and 
down  the  Columbia  to  its  mouth.  It  was  this 
expedition,  together  with  the  heroic  action  of 
American  sailors  in  those  far-off  waters,  that 
gave  us  a  foothold  in  the  north  western  por- 
tion of  the  continent.  This  'foothold  was 
further  strengthened  by  the  business  enter- 
prises of  John  Jacob  Astor  ;  and  if  discovery 
and  settlement  constitute  valid  titles  to  terri- 
tory, as  they  have  been  thought  to  do  ever 
since  mediaeval  times,  no  doubt  our  claim  to 
the  whole  of  the  land  reaching  from  California 
to  the  Russian  Possessions  was  perfectly  justi- 


THE    POLICY   OF   EXPANSION  189 

fied.  But  the  Northwest  Fur  Company  of 
Great  Britain  came  in  on  the  heels  of  our  own 
discoverers  and  traders  and  set  up  a  counter 
claim.  In  1818  it  was  found  necessary,  in 
order  to  avoid  friction  and  a  possible  conflict, 
to  frame  a  treaty  of  joint  occupancy. 

This,  however,  was  only  a  temporary  expe- 
dient. While  the  devotees  of  slavery  were 
looking  for  new  lands  in  which  to  expand  and 
strengthen  their  peculiar  institution,  the  hardy 
sons  of  toil  here  in  the  North  were  seeking 
fresh  opportunities  for  profitable  enterprise. 
The  fur  trade  and  the  fisheries  made  it  neces- 
sary that  the  flag  should  give  its  protection 
to  those  whose  daring  had  carried  them  to  the 
northwestern  slopes  of  the  continent.  The 
pro-slavery  interest  did  not  regard  with  favor 
this  demand  and  was  quite  willing  that  the 
nation  should  yield  to  any  claims  that  Eng- 
land might  make.  Even  Benton  declared  that 
the  Rocky  Mountains  was  the  proper  western 
boundary  of  the  Union.  But  the  pressure 
was  too  strong.  The  Democratic  Party  could 
not  ignore  the  issue  and  was  forced  to  put  it 
into  the  platform  of  1844.  To  the  cry  of  the 
annexation  of  Texas  was  added  in  many  parts 
of  the  country  the  watchword  of  ' '  fifty-four 
forty  or  fight."  But  Polk,  having  accom- 


190  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES 

plished  his  purpose  in  the  war  with  Mexico, 
was  eager  for  a  settlement  of  the  Oregon 
boundary  question.  He  had  no  heart  to  press 
for  the  whole  of  the  American  demand.  It 
did  not  enter  into  his  conception  that  Russia 
might,  within  a  score  of  years,  tender  her 
possessions  in  the  north,  to  the  United  States, 
and  that  then  it  would  be  of  immense  import- 
ance to  this  country  to  have  an  unbroken 
territorial  domain  reaching  up  to  Behring 
Strait.  Hence  when  the  English  premier 
suggested  the  49th  parallel  as  a  compromise, 
and  when  Daniel  Webster,  though  not  in 
office,  lent  the  weight  of  his  great  authority 
in  favor  of  that  compromise,  it  was  readily 
accepted.  A  treaty  was  formed  which  made 
the  49th  parallel  on  the  mainland  the  bound- 
ary, being  an  extension  of  the  then  existing 
northern  boundary  line  from  the  Great  L,akes 
to  Oregon.  The  whole  of  Vancouver  Island 
was  given  to  Great  Britain  and  the  strait  of 
Juan  de  Fuca  was  made  the  dividing  water- 
way. In  consequence  of  that  compromise, 
that  yielding  up  of  territory  that  had  been 
pre-occupied  by  American  adventurers,  the 
citizens  of  this  Republic  today  are  obliged  to 
pay  an  exorbitant  toll  to  British  subjects  in 
order  to  pass  from  Oregon  to  Alaska,  and  a 


THE   POLICY   OF   EXPANSION  19 1 

chronic  quarrel  exists  between  American  and 
Canadian  miners.  Still,  the  territory  confirmed 
to  the  United  States  by  the  treaty  was  of 
gigantic  proportions  and  out  of  it  have  been 
carved  the  states  of  Washington,  Oregon, 
Idaho  and  parts  of  Montana  and  Wyoming. 

This  completes  the  list  of  our  territorial  ac- 
quisitions anterior  to  the  war  of  the  Rebel- 
lion. During  the  progress  of  that  war  this 
country  had  many  proofs  of  the  strong  and 
unyielding  friendship  of  Russia.  It  was  as  if 
she  had  some  secret  sense  of  that  common 
mission  in  "the  dominion  of  half  the  Globe" 
which  De  Toqueville  sixty  years  ago  assigned 
to  America  and  Russia.  It  is  believed  by 
many  that,  but  for  the  manifestation  of  that 
friendship,  there  might  have  been  some  overt 
act  from  Great  Britain  in  conjunction  with 
France  and  Austria  to  put  an  end  to  the  hos- 
tilities between  the  North  and  the  South,  and 
to  set  up  the  Confederate  States  as  an  inde- 
pendent nation  with  slavery  as  its  "  corner- 
stone." At  all  events,  in  the  darkest  hour  of 
our  tribulation,  when  all  faces  were  averted 
and  when  every  man's  hand  seemed  to  be 
against  us,  that  mighty  monarchy  placed  her 
battle  ships  and  her  sailors  where  they  could 
be  within  call  at  any  moment.  Probably  it 


IQ2  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

will  never  be  known  how  much  we  are  in- 
debted for  the  preservation  of  the  Union  and 
the  magnificent  results  of  the  triumph  of  our 
arms  in  that  great  civil  contest,  to  the  vast 
empire  whose  dominions  reach  from  the 
Pacific  Ocean  across  the  continent  of  Asia 
and  across  Europe  also,  to  the  Baltic  Sea.  It 
is  a  somewhat  significant  fact  that  no  sooner 
was  the  war  ended  by  the  triumph  of  the 
Union  arms,  than  Russia  came  forward  with  a 
tender  of  Alaska  for  the  paltry  sum  of  seven 
million  dollars — five  hundred  and  eighty 
thousand  square  miles  of  territory  !  The 
statesmen  of  America  were  almost  paralyzed 
by  the  proposition,  and  it  is  believed  that 
they  were  largely  moved  to  the  acceptance  of 
it  because  they  wished  to  do  a  favor  to  a  na- 
tion whose  friendship  for  America  had  never 
faltered.  That,  however,  was  a  poor  con- 
struction to  put  upon  an  act  of  great  magna- 
nimity. Today  we  are  beginning  to  have 
some  sense  of  the  value  of  this  mighty  province 
in  her  furs,  her  timber,  her  fisheries  and  her 
gold  mines  ;  and  no  man  can  tell  what  possi- 
bilities the  future  has  in  store. 

This  was  the  first  instance  in  our  history  of 
the  acquisition  of  territory  that  was  not  contig- 
uous to  existing  possessions.  The  accession 


THE  POLICY  OF  EXPANSION          193 

has  given  little  difficulty  on  that  account,  and 
perhaps  it  is  the  schooling  that  we  have  had 
in  the  government  of  territory  at  a  distance 
that  has  made  us  willing  to  contemplate  with 
favor  after  twenty  years,  new  possessions  lying 
beyond  seas.  For  many  years,  as  far  back 
as  Webster's  time,  our  broadest-minded  and 
most  forecasting  statesmen  have  recognized 
the  strategic  importance  of  the  Hawaiian 
group  to  the  United  States,  whenever  its  com- 
merce should  reach  its  due  proportions. 
These  islands  lie  directly  in  the  track  of 
steamships  traversing  the  Pacific  Ocean  from 
our  western  seaboard  to  the  farther  East.  In 
the  developments  of  recent  years  it  has  been 
felt  by  many  that  the  future  of  America  as  a 
sea  power,  or  as  a  commercial  power,  was 
vitally  related  to  the  possession  of  those  is- 
lands. They  were  as  truly  the  gateway  of 
our  ocean-going  trade  in  that  direction  as  was 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  to  the  interior 
commerce  of  the  continent,  before  our  trans- 
continental railroads  had  flung  defiance  to  our 
river  ways.  Moreover,  these  islands  were  in 
a  sense  American.  American  missionaries 
had  gone  there  with  the  healing  and  uplifting 
messages  of  Christianity.  They  had  taught 
both  letters  and  religion  to  the  native  popula- 


194  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

tion.  Their  sons,  by  an  enterprise  that  was 
truly  American,  had  transformed  the  wilder- 
ness into  a  garden  and  set  up  an  enduring 
American  civilization.  They  had  kept,  too, 
their  loyalty  and  love  for  the  old  flag.  In  the 
war  of  the  Rebellion  they  gave  their  money 
and  risked  their  lives  for  the  preservation  of 
the  Union.  The  one,  unwavering  desire  of 
their  hearts  was  that  they  might  see  the  glo- 
rious flag  of  their  fathers  floating  in  triumph 
above  their  beautiful  islands.  Still,  though 
the  invitation  was  again  and  again  urgently 
repeated  to  take  them  under  our  sheltering 
wing,  the  nation  hesitated  to  assume  grave 
political  responsibilities,  so  far  away  from  our 
continental  possessions.  Not  until  the  ex- 
igencies of  the  Spanish  war  taught  us  that 
the  control  of  this  archipelago  was  absolutely 
vital  to  us  in  any  conflict  of  arms  that  might 
occur  in  the  distant  orient,  did  we  venture  to 
take  the  step  to  which  we  had  been  urged. 
Then  the  deed  was  done  and  it  was  done 
quickly. 

In  looking  back  now  over  this  rapid  survey 
of  the  steps  by  which  we  have  grown  from  a 
little  strip  of  land  lying  along  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  between  New  Brunswick  and  the 
Savannah  River,  to  a  vast  continental  domain 


THE   POUCY   OF    EXPANSION  195 

that  has  even  now  set  up  the  standard  of  its 
power  in  the  mid- Pacific,  we  perceive  that 
two  great  controlling  motives  have  dictated 
the  policy  of  its  acquisitions,  from  the  time  of 
Jefferson  to  the  present  hour.  These  motives 
are:  first,  commercial,  and  secondly,  political. 
That  man  of  transcendent  genius,  whose 
hand  drafted  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, saw  with  perfect  clearness  of  vision, 
when  once  his  thought  was  directed  to  the 
subject,  that  the  first  concern  of  a  nation 
must  be  for  the  industries  and  trade  of  its 
people.  Without  adequate  attention  to  these 
things  there  could  be  neither  prosperity  nor 
happiness  for  any.  But  in  order  that  the 
state  might  afford  due  protection  and  give 
ample  impulse  within  this  province,  care 
should  be  taken  that  the  state  might  preserve 
its  independence  and  its  power.  If  she  were 
neglectful  of  these  she  would  become  the  easy 
prey  of  every  set  of  reckless  adventurers,  and 
every  unscrupulous  nation,  ambitious  for  colo- 
nial expansion.  She  must  entrench  herself 
beyond  the  possibility  of  successful  assault 
from  any  quarter.  These  were  the  controlling 
reasons  in  the  purchase  of  Louisiana,  and, 
with  only  slight  deviations  the}'  have  been 
followed  steadfastly  by  all  our  statesmen  who 


196  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

have  taken  an  active  part  in  the  enlargement 
of  our  national  domain.  The  only  possible 
exception,  perhaps,  was  the  case  of  Alaska. 
But  in  this  case,  also,  it  should  be  remembered 
that  both  Sumner  and  Seward,  who  had 
mainly  to  do  with  the  drafting  and  execution 
of  that  treaty,  never  failed  to  keep  before  the 
mind's  eye  the  hope  that  one  day  the  entire 
American  continent,  from  the  North  Pole  to 
the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  would  repose  under 
the  ample  folds  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes ;  and 
they  thought  they  saw  in  this  acquisition  one 
long  step  towards  the  fulfilment  of  their 
dream.  Who  shall  yet  say  that  they  were 
altogether  mistaken  in  this  expectation  ? 
Who  will  dare  to  proclaim  that  the  time  may 
not  come — far  off  though  it  be — when  this 
great  North  American  continent,  covered  from 
end  to  end  with  a  people  speaking  our  Anglo- 
American  tongue,  shall  hail  the  one  glorious 
flag  of  freedom  as  their  symbdl  and  look  to 
one  grand  Union  for  protection  ? 

It  may  be  said  of  our  earlier  acquisitions, 
what  Jefferson  himself  felt,  that,  if  they  were 
not  exactly  opposed  to  the  provisions  of  the 
Constitution,  they  were,  at  least,  beyond  its 
scope.  They  were  extra  constitutional.  But 
the  process  has  been  so  often  repeated  that  it 


THE    POLICY    OF    EXPANSION  197 

has  become  a  part  of  our  organic  law  with 
the  full  sanction  of  our  highest  judicial  tri- 
bunal. There  can  be  no  longer  any  doubt  as 
to  the  legality  of  the  process.  The  method 
of  government,  too,  that  has  been  applied  to 
our  various  territories  is  interesting  and  in- 
structive. In  no  single  instance  has  an  effort 
been  made  to  get  a  formal  expression  of  the 
will  of  the  people  domiciled  within  the  do- 
main to  be  acquired,  as  a  condition  precedent 
to  the  acquisition.  No  plebiscite  has  ever 
been  sought.  Neither  has  any  pains  been 
taken  to  secure  the  ' '  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned "  before  setting  up  a  governmental 
regime.  The  governors  of  all  our  territories 
are  of  presidential  appointment.  They  are 
as  much  an  emanation  from  the  central  au- 
thority as  were  the  proconsuls  of  Rome,  and, 
while  a  certain  measure  of  independence  in 
legislation  is  allowed  to  the  people,  the  su- 
preme legislative  authority  for  the  territories 
as  well  as  for  the  District  of  Columbia,  is 
lodged  in  the  Congress.  Never  has  Congress 
shown  itself  to  be  under  any  compulsion  to 
recognize  the  statehood  of  a  territory  so  soon 
as  the  constitutional  limit  of  population  shall 
have  been  reached.  It  may  be  kept  under 


198  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

territorial  subjection,  as  in  the  case  of  Utah, 
long  after  that  limit  is  passed. 

All  this  is  of  immense  significance  in  view 
of  the  enormous  possessions  that,  within  less 
than  three  years,  have  fallen  within  the  scope 
of  our  power  as  an  incident  of  the  Spanish 
war.  It  may  help  us  to  answer  the  question 
with  which  we  began,  the  question  which  all 
the  world  is  asking  with  eager  interest  and 
which  we  ourselves  are  asking  the  most 
eagerly  of  all,  what  position  is  the  United 
States  to  assume  as  a  great  world  power  and 
what  attitude  is  she  to  take  towards  the  pos- 
sessions which  are  now,  by  every  considera- 
tion of  historic  precedent  and  national  expe- 
rience, a  part  of  our  great  domain  ? 

There  can  be  but  one  answer.  The  banner 
of  the  United  States  has  inscribed  upon  its 
folds  the  old  Latin  device,  nulla  vestigia  re- 
trorsum,  and  she  is  not  likely  to  shrink  from 
any  of  the  obligations,  however  onerous  or 
however  complicated,  which  the  exigencies 
of  the  situation  have  cast  upon  her.  To  the 
islands  and  the  people  both  of  the  West  and 
the  East  that  have  suddenly,  and,  as  it  were, 
by  accident  fallen  under  her  power,  she  will, 
as  in  the  territories  previously  acquired, 
whether  by  purchase  or  conquest,  proceed  to 


THE    POIylCY   OF   EXPANSION  199 

carry  without  delay  her  institutions  of  free- 
dom and  her  uplifting  and  stimulating  arm 
for  every  measure  of  a  progressive  civilization. 
Who  shall  say  that  there  is  in  this  any  ele- 
ment of  usurpation  or  injustice  ?  The  fact 
that  the  Philippine  Islands  contain  eight  mil- 
lions of  people,  many  of  them  well  advanced 
in  the  arts  of  life,  does  not  alter  the  conditions 
of  the  problem.  We  are  there  under  a  respon- 
sibility which  cannot  be  evaded.  When  the 
Olympia  and  her  consorts  on  that  bright  May 
morning  sailed  into  Manila  Bay  and,  in  a  brief 
hour,  swept  every  vestige  of  Spanish  power 
from  those  eastern  seas,  a  great  burden  fell 
upon  the  American  nation,  which  it  could  not 
put  aside.  To  have  sailed  away  in  that  same 
hour  and  left  the  great,  opulent  and  populous 
city  of  Manila  to  the  lust  and  rapine  of  the 
insurgent  and  native  population,  would  have 
exposed  the  American  nation  not  only  to  the 
scorn,  but  the  just  opprobrium  of  the  world. 
We  were  there  to  maintain  the  dignity  and 
authority  of  the  nation,  and  there  we  must  re- 
main until  we  have  removed  every  danger 
from  hostility,  brought  order  out  of  chaos  and 
set  up  as  large  a  measure  of  freedom  as  the 
people  are  able  to  appreciate  and  use. 

One  can  scarcely  help  believing  that  there 


200  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

is  a  providence  in  all  this,  and  that  the  Su- 
preme Ruler  of  the  universe,  for  his  own  grand 
purpose  in  the  elevation  and  redemption  of 
mankind,  has  shaped  these  conditions  for  us 
and  marked  out  for  us  the  path  of  duty, 
which  is  but  a  continuation  of  that  path 
which  was  prescribed  for  our  Pilgrim  ances- 
tors when  they  brought  the  Mayflower  into 
Plymouth  Harbor,  and  began  to  lay  in  the 
wilderness  of  America  the  foundations  of  a 
new  empire  of  freedom.  The  whole  situation 
in  which  we  find  ourselves  is  at  least  a  fulfil- 
ment of  the  magnificent  prediction  of  De 
Tocqueville  that  the  United  States  with  her 
democratic  institutions  is  to  sway  with  Russia 
1 '  the  destinies  of  half  the  Globe. ' '  The  Span- 
ish war  has  taught  us  that  alike  for  the  pro- 
tection of  our  commerce  and  for  the  perfect 
use  of  our  navy,  in  order  that  we  may  make 
our  great  continental  possessions  impregnable 
and  without  a  rival  in  power, i  as  Jefferson 
perceived  they  would  ultimately  become,  and 
as  Sumner  and  Seward  labored  to  make  them, 
we  must  proceed  immediately  to  construct 
across  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  a  canal  that 
may  safely  bear  upon  its  bosom  from  ocean  to 
ocean  the  entire  commerce  of  our  country,  and 
our  giant  battle-ships  in  time  of  need.  This 


THK    POIvICY   OF   KXPANSION  2OI 

war,  also,  has  put  into  our  possession  Porto 
Rico,  and  given  us  such  privileges  in  the 
"  Pearl  of  the  Antilles,"  that  we  may  build 
our  canal  and  hold  it,  if  need  be,  against  the 
combined  power  of  the  civilized  world.  In 
the  same  way  and  largely  through  the 
same  instrumentality  we  have  just  awak- 
ened to  the  sense  of  our  mighty  possibilities 
in  the  Orient.  The  doors  which  the  other 
nations  are  now  opening  in  the  crumbling 
Chinese  empire,  invite  us  also  to  enter.  With 
a  gateway  established  by  the  possession  of 
the  Hawaiian  islands,  and  a  foothold  from 
which  we  cannot  be  dislodged,  established  in 
the  Philippines,  we  are  in  a  position  not  only 
to  enjoy  our  full  share  of  the  almost  bound- 
less commercial  privileges  of  the  Hast,  but  to 
exert  that  degree  of  political  influence  to 
which  our  dignity  and  power  among  the  na- 
tions entitle  us.  Surely  it  is  a  proud  day  for 
the  citizens  of  the  American  Republic,  a  day 
of  hope  and  promise  for  the  enslaved  people 
of  all  the  despotic  kingdoms  of  the  earth. 
The  hour  for  the  decay  of  tyranny  has  struck, 
the  hour  for  the  triumph  of  democracy  has 
come.  The  United  States  of  America  is  to 
bear  aloft  the  sacred  banner  of  freedom  in  the 
eyes  of  the  nations,  and  to  lead  in  the  im- 


202  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

posing  procession  which  is  to  conduct  all  the 
struggling  races  of  mankind  at  last  into  the 
promised  land  of  equality  and  privilege. 


PUBLIC  EDUCATION  IN  MASSACHUSETTS 


GIVEN  BEFORE  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  CONFERENCE 
OF  EDUCATIONAL  WORKERS,  NOVEMBER,  1900. 


What  has  the  Commonwealth  done  for  pub- 
lic education  during  the  nineteenth  century  ? 
It  might  be  sufficient  to  cite  the  statutes  and 
let  them  tell  their  own  story.  Possibly  many 
would  be  able  to  see  from  such  recital  not 
only  an  outline  of  the  work  which  the  State 
has  done,  but,  in  imagination,  to  recreate  and 
cause  to  live  again  those  splendid  achieve- 
ments which  have  brought  us  to  our  present 
high  position.  The  passing,  however,  from 
one  century  to  another  would  seem  to  demand 
something  more  than  that.  The  nineteenth 
century,  we  are  prone  to  think,  is  likely  to 
stand  as  the  most  remarkable  thus  far  in  his- 
tory for  a  great  variety  of  achievements. 
Perhaps  it  is  impossible  to  say  now  in  just 
what  line  of  effort  it  has  left  the  richest  legacy 
to  mankind.  But  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  when  the  great  sum  of  the  contributions 
which  it  has  made  to  posterity,  especially  here 
in  America,  is  fully  computed,  the  progres- 


204  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

sive  steps  that  have  been  taken  in  education 
will  not  be  wholly  overlooked. 

One  thing,  however,  should  be  distinctly 
borne  in  mind,  the  work  of  the  century  is  a 
continuous  process.  It  is  the  logical  result 
of  everything  that  has  gone  before.  All  writ- 
ers upon  the  subject  concede  this.  Indeed, 
nearly  all  begin  by  quoting  the  statutes  of 
1642,  and  1647,  which  have  attracted  the  at- 
tention of  intelligent  observers  the  world  over. 
Here,  undoubtedly,  we  have  the  key-note,  and, 
in  a  way,  the  justification  of  everything  that 
has  followed.  But  to  my  mind,  for  the  source, 
so  far  as  the  Commonwealth  itself  is  concerned, 
we  need  to  go  a  little  farther  back  than  that. 
It  ought  never  to  be  forgotten  that  the  one 
paramount  motive  that  brought  the  Pilgrim 
colony  to  Massachusetts  was  not,  as  is  so  often 
claimed,  religious  freedom,  not  the  possibility 
of  worldly  profit,  nor  even  the  very  worthy 
ambition  of  laying  the  foundations,  and,  in 
part,  rearing  the  superstructure  of  a  new  and 
more  glorious  commonwealth  than  the  world 
had  ever  seen  before.  The  real  desire  which 
possessed  the  minds  of  the  Pilgrims  and  led 
them  to  undergo  all  their  trials  and  sacrifices, 
was  the  education  and  training  of  their  chil- 
dren. How  instructive  are  the  simple  words 


PUBLIC   EDUCATION  205 

of  their  own  narrative  !  ' '  Many  of  their  chil- 
dren that  were  of  best  dispositions  and  gracious 
inclinations,  having  learned  to  bear  the  yoke 
in  their  youth  and  willing  to  bear  part  of  their 
parents'  burden,  were  oftentimes  so  oppressed 
with  their  heavy  labors,  that,  although  their 
minds  were  free  and  willing,  yet  their  bodies 
bowed  under  the  weight  of  the  same,  and  be- 
came decrepit  in  their  early  youth,  the  vigor 
of  nature  being  consumed  in  the  bud,  as  it 
were.  But  that  which  was  more  lamentable, 
and  of  all  sorrows  most  heavy  to  be  borne, 
was  that  many  of  their  children,  by  these  oc- 
casions, and  the  great  licentiousness  of  youth 
in  the  country,  and  the  manifold  temptations 
of  the  place,  were  drawn  away  by  evil  exam- 
ples into  extravagant  and  dangerous  courses. ' ' 
Nor  was  this  the  worst  result.  They  saw  their 
children  becoming  Dutch,  and  they  could  not 
help  reflecting,  "how  like  they  were  to  lose 
their  language  and  their  name  of  English  .  .  . 
how  unable  there  to  give  their  children  such 
an  education  as  they  themselves  had  received. ' ' 
Therefore  they  thought,  "  If  God  would  be 
pleased  to  discover  some  place  unto  them, 
though  in  America,  where  they  might  ex- 
emplarily  show  their  tender  countrymen  by 
their  example,  no  less  burdened  than  them- 


206  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

selves,  where  they  might  live  and  comfortably 
subsist,"  they  might  "keep  their  names  and 
nation,  and  not  only  be  a  means  to  enlarge 
the  English  State,  but  the  Church  of  Christ 
also,  if  the  L,ord  had  a  people  among  the 
natives  whither  he  would  bring  them." 
"  Hereby  they  thought  they  might  more 
glorify  God,  do  more  good  to  their  country, 
better  provide  for  their  posterity,  and  live  to 
be  more  refreshed  by  their  labors,  than  ever 
they  could  do  in  Holland,  where  they  were." 
The  education  and  training  of  posterity  ap- 
pear to  have  been  the  great  burden  which 
weighed  upon  the  minds  of  the  Pilgrims  be- 
fore they  had  determined  to  emigrate,  and  was 
one  of  the  most  powerful  causes  impelling  to 
their  emigration.  Of  course,  for  the  ultimate 
sources  of  that  interest  in  intellectual  develop- 
ment which  has  characterized  Massachusetts 
in  common  with  all  the  New  England  states, 
we  need  to  look,  as  Mr.  Martin  has  reminded 
us  in  his  admirable  treatise  on  the  evolution 
of  the  public  school  system,  to  the  revival  of 
learning,  the  Protestant  Reformation,  and  the 
Puritan  movement  in  Great  Britain.  These 
are  the  things  that  have  created  the  intellec- 
tual atmosphere  in  which  we  and  our  fathers 
have  lived  from  the  beginning.  Without 


PUBLIC   EDUCATION  207 

these  the  legislative  act  of  1647  would  have 
been  impossible.  Without  these  John  Adams 
would  never  have  been  inspired  to  put  into 
the  Constitution  of  Massachusetts  the  sublime 
injunction,  "  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  legisla- 
tures and  magistrates,  in  all  future  periods  of 
the  Commonwealth,  to  cherish  the  interests  of 
literature  and  the  sciences,  and  all  seminaries 
of  them  ;  especially  the  University  at  Cam- 
bridge, public  schools  and  grammar  schools 
in  the  towns. ' '  Without  these  we  should  not 
have  had  for  the  greater  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  school  house  in  every  town  and 
district  of  the  State,  with  its  doors  open  to 
boys  and  girls  alike.  Without  these  we  could 
never  have  had  that  constant  and  growing 
conviction,  that  the  one  paramount  interest 
and  duty  of  thfc  Commonwealth  is  not  only  to 
preserve  intact  our  institutions  of  public  in- 
struction, but  to  multiply  them  and  increase 
their  efficiency. 

But  while,  as  I  have  said,  every  great  move- 
ment of  mankind  is  a  continuous  process 
whose  roots  often  run  backward  to  remotest 
times,  yet  there  will  be  variations  in  the  force 
of  the  movement  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion and  from  age  to  age.  The  '  'tide  in  the 
affairs  of  men  "  must  ebb  and  flow.  There 


208  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

will  be  seasons  when  everything  seeins  to  be 
lifted  on  the  bosom  of  a  vast  and  inexhausti- 
ble flood,  and  again  seasons  in  which  the  en- 
tire race  seems  to  be  stranded  in  sandy  and 
hopeless  desolation,  when  everything  that  is 
vital  to  its  welfare  appears  to  have  run  out 
and  vanished.  It  was  natural,  perhaps,  that 
the  cause  of  public  education  in  Massachu- 
setts should  have  passed  through  some  such 
unhappy  phase.  The  gradual  deterioration 
of  the  population  from  the  original  stock;  the 
poverty  and  barrenness  of  the  country,  de- 
priving the  people  of  nearly  all  the  instrumen- 
talities of  a  refined  and  noble  life,  and  thus 
deadening  their  sentiments  and  lowering  their 
ideals ;  the  Revolution  in  which  the  people 
were  exposed  to  peril,  privation  and  hardship, 
and  in  which  the  mind  was  occupied  by  a 
great  and  absorbing  passion;  the  stupor  which 
succeeded  the  revolutionary  contest,  leaving 
men  for  a  time,  at  least,  without  a  spur  to 
their  ambition  and  without  a  consuming 
moral  energy,  all  these  things  combined  at 
the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  for 
nearly  the  first  half  of  it,  to  put  the  cause  of 
popular  education  in  a  deplorable  condition. 

The  school  houses  of  the  period  were  as  poor 
and  bare  and  mean  and  ill-adapted  for  their 


PUBUC    EDUCATION  2OQ 

purpose  as  it  is  possible  to  conceive  such 
buildings  to  be.  They  were  unsightly,  un- 
healthy, and  sometimes  indecent.  Many  a 
farmer  in  the  districts  where  these  buildings 
were  situated  had  houses  for  his  animals  that 
were  as  comfortable  as  these.  Yet  into  these 
buildings  were  herded  for  purposes  of  in- 
struction, from  a  wide  area,  children  of  both 
sexes  and  of  all  ages,  from  toddling  infants, 
to  the  shoemaker  who  was  out  of  a  job  and 
the  sailor  who  was  home  from  a  voyage. 
The  teachers  for  the  most  part  were  wholly 
incompetent.  They  had  no  adequate  training 
and  no  proper  idea  of  their  work ;  they  were 
destitute  alike  of  self-discipline  and  the  power 
to  discipline  others,  and,  many  times,  without 
the  moral  principle  which  should  be  the  first 
requisite  of  a  preceptor  of  youth.  The  text- 
books, for  the  most  part,  were  not  only  unfit 
for  their  purpose  almost  to  the  point  of  being 
ludicrous,  but  they  were  chosen  without  sup- 
ervision at  the  caprice  of  teachers  or  from  the 
sordidness  of  parents.  I  myself  remember 
a  kinsman  of  mine,  a  small  manufacturer  and 
trader,  in  one  his  trips  to  the  city,  buying  a 
job  lot  of  school  books,  arithmetics  by  a 
variety  of  authors,  geographies,  antiquated 
and  unscientific,  spelling  books  and  readers 


210  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

unheard  of  in  any  approved  list  of  text-books, 
and  distributing  them  around  among  his  own 
and  the  neighbors'  children  as  far  as  they 
would  go.  These  books  were  used  for  at 
least  one  winter  to  the  confusion  of  the 
classes  and  the  despair  of  the  teacher.  Noth- 
ing could  be  more  hopeless  than  the  condition 
of  public  education  in  Massachusetts,  and, 
indeed,  in  all  America  for  that  matter,  in 
1825,  and  even  as  late  as  the  middle  of  the 
century. 

But  as  the  old  proverb  has  it,  "  it  is  always 
darkest  just  before  day."  Sometimes,  indeed, 
the  darkness  is  the  harbinger  of  a  new  and 
more  glorious  light.  So  it  was  in  this  case. 
As  old  Blomidon  looks  out  on  the  Bay  of 
Fundy,  when  the  waters  have  fled  from  his 
feet,  and  waits  serenely  for  the  return  of  the 
flood  which  will  come  with  a  roar  like  artil- 
lery, and  a  rush  like  an  invincible  army,  so 
there  were  those  in  Massachusetts  who  waited 
in  hope,  and  never  quite  lost  their  faith  or 
their  courage.  They  felt  that  the  people 
would  awake  out  of  their  stupor,  that  they 
would  arise  in  their  might  and  do  for  their 
children  what  was  essential,  not  only  for  their 
development,  but  for  the  safety  and  progress 
of  the  state.  Among  these  was  Mr.  James  G. 


PUBLIC    EDUCATION  211 

Carter,  a  man  to  whom  the  state  is,  and  ever 
will  be,  under  an  immeasurable  obligation. 
Away  back  in  the  early  twenties  he  began  the 
agitation  which  resulted  in  those  legislative 
enactments  that  have  borne  such  rich  fruit  in 
the  school  life  of  the  state  during  the  last  forty 
years.  The  legislation  of  1826  which  pro- 
vided for  our  modern  type  of  high  school, 
especially  as  it  is  now  differentiated  into  Eng- 
lish and  Latin  ;  of  1827  which  made  the  entire 
support  of  the  public  schools  by  taxation  com- 
pulsory; of  1834  establishing  the  School  Fund, 
is  largely  due  to  his  efforts.  But  the  grand- 
est work  of  his  life,  that  for  which  his  name 
deserves  to  be  written  in  any  temple  of  fame 
of  Massachusetts,  above  the  names  of  either 
her  heroes  or  her  statesmen,  was  the  passage, 
in  1837,  of  the  law  creating  the  Board  of 
Education. 

It  is  unnecessary  that  I  should  outline  the 
powers  and  functions  of  this  board.  Many 
who  are  accustomed  to  work  under  more  im- 
perious, not  to  say  more  drastic  conditions, 
are  inclined  to  smile  at  what  seems  to  them 
the  perfectly  colorless  authority  of  a  commis- 
sion that  holds  so  important  a  place  in  the 
government  of  a  great  state.  But  such  per- 
sons can  have  but  a  poor  appreciation  of  the 


212  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

fact  that  in  democratic  society  the  thing  which 
is  of  more  force  than  any  statute  and  which 
ultimately  prevails,  is  public  opinion.  The 
real  function  of  the  Board  of  Education  has 
been  to  create  and  guide  public  opinion  in  all 
matters  pertaining  to  the  ideals  and  instru- 
ments of  popular  instruction.  I  need  not  say 
that  it  has  discharged  this  function  in  a  man- 
ner that  reflects  no  discredit  either  upon  the 
board  or  the  Commonwealth.  Indeed,  it  has 
done  some  things  that  may  be  set  down  among 
the  noblest  chapters  in  the  history  of  a  great 
people.  The  first  thing  that  it  did  was  to  call 
into  its  service  as  Secretary,  Horace  Mann,  a 
man  of  great  intellectual  endowment  and  vol- 
canic' enthusiasm,  who  took  up  the  cause  of 
education  with  a  devotion  that  has  scarcely 
ever  been  surpassed  in  any  cause  before  or 
since.  No  soldier  of  the  Cross  ever  preached 
a  crusade  with  more  consuming  or  irresistible 
ardor.  No  missionary  ever  went  'forth  with  a 
sublimer  confidence  in  the  value  of  his  mes- 
sage ;  and  no  statesman  ever  had  more  prac- 
tical and  practicable  methods  to  offer.  The 
work  performed  by  Horace  Mann  has  placed 
him  forever  at  the  head,  so  far  as  this  country 
is  concerned,  of  the  great  leaders  of  popular 
education,  and  though  in  his  official  term  he 


PUBLIC  EDUCATION  213 

saw  few  of  the  results  for  which  he  wrought, 
we  to-day  are  beginning  to  pluck  the  ripened 
fruit  of  his  unparalleled  exertions. 

Almost  immediately  upon  its  creation  the 
Board  of  Education  took  measures  for  the  es- 
tablishment of  normal  schools.  In  1839  two 
of  these  were  opened,  one  in  L,exington  and 
one  in  Barre.  These  are  continued  in  the 
schools  of  Framingham  and  Westfield.  The 
school  in  Bridgewater  was  opened  in  1840. 
Thus  early  the  Board  of  Education  took  the 
step  which  has  elevated  teaching  to  the  dig- 
nity of  a  learned  profession  and  made  prepara- 
tion for  it  as  imperative  as  preparation  for 
the  Christian  ministry.  It  has  had  entire 
charge  of  these  schools  from  the  beginning, 
and  has  watched  over  them  with  such  fidelity 
that  their  number  has  increased  from  three  to 
ten.  It  has  steadily  raised  the  standard  of 
admission  until  now  the  high  schools  stand 
under  them  as  completely  as  they  do  under 
the  colleges  and  universities.  It  has  length- 
ened the  time  required  for  graduation  from 
one  year  to  two  years  and  is  beginning  to  look 
to  a  three  years'  course  as  the  proper  requisite 
for  a  diploma.  At  the  same  time  the  char- 
acter of  the  teaching  in  the  normal  schools 
has  kept  pace  with  the  growing  demands  of 


214  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

education.  Normally  trained  teachers  have 
demonstrated  their  superiority  over  all  others, 
and  the  call  for  them  has  increased  until  now 
it  is  nearly  universal.  If  the  Board  of  Edu- 
cation had  rendered  no  other  service  its  ex- 
istence would  have  been  amply  justified. 

But  the  sphere  of  its  activity  has  not  been 
thus  limited.  Its  supervision  has  embraced 
the  entire  field  of  public  instruction.  Through 
its  Secretary  and  agents,  it  has  caused  its  in- 
fluence to  be  felt  in  every  part  of  the  Common- 
wealth disseminating  information,  rousing  the 
interest  of  the  people  in  their  schools,  setting 
before  them  proper  standards,  and  helping 
poorly  trained  teachers  to  overcome  their 
faults  and  adopt  right  methods.  Thus  it  has 
been  a  fountain  of  light  and  inspiration.  It 
has  had  oversight  of  all  the  schools  of  the 
Commonwealth,  both  public  and  private.  It 
has  gathered  information,  omitting  no  fact 
that  has  any  conceivable  beari'ng  upon  the 
subject  with  which  it  is  charged,  classified 
and  tabulated  it,  and  spread  it  broadcast  for 
the  enlightenment  of  the  people  and  the 
guidance  of  the  legislature .  Its  reports  from 
1838  until  the  present  time  are  a  rich  mine 
which  no  student  of  popular  learning  can 
afford  to  neglect.  In  much  of  this  work,  too, 


PUBLIC  EDUCATION  215 

it  should  be  remembered,  the  board  has  been 
a  pioneer,  walking  in  no  beaten  path,  but  en- 
tering the  wilderness  with  unfaltering  tread, 
and  clearing  the  way  for  others. 

It  would  be  impossible  in  this  brief  address 
even  to  hint  at  all  the  important  things  which 
have  been  done  in  Massachusetts  since  1837, 
but  there  are  a  few  matters  of  such  command- 
ing importance  that  they  should  not  be  omitted 
even  in  the  most  cursory  treatment  of  the  sub- 
tect.  At  every  step  the  Board  of  Education 
has  sought  to  furnish  to  the  Legislature  a 
proper  basis  for  its  judgment,  and  the  Legis- 
lature has  rarely  failed  to  turn  to  it  for  en- 
lightenment and  counsel.  Acting  thus  in 
mutual  harmony  and  confidence,  very  marked 
progress  has  been  secured. 

For  example,  a  minimum  time  for  the  main- 
tenance of  public  schools  has  been  fixed  by 
statute.  Whereas,  formerly  the  local  author- 
ities could  fix  their  own  time,  and  did  actu- 
ally in  perhaps  a  majority  of  the  towns,  con- 
fine the  school  privilege  to  two  terms  a  year, 
varying  in  length  from  ten  to  thirteen  weeks 
each,  the  Legislature  has  enacted  that  in  every 
town  there  shall  be  kept,  for  at  least  six 
months,  a  sufficient  number  of  schools  for  the 
instruction  of  all  the  children.  This  time  has 


2l6  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

now  been  increased  from  six  to  eight  months. 
Thus,  education  instead  of  being  a  mere  in- 
cident, or  possibly  a  pastime,  in  the  lives  of 
children  is  now  their  regular  business  during 
the  period  of  school  age. 

But  the  law  does  not  stop  at  this  point. 
Not  only  does  it  command  that  provision  shall 
be  made  for  a  continuous  school  privilege 
covering  all  the  time  that  is  available  for 
study,  but  the  use  of  the  privilege  is  made 
mandatory  upon  all  between  the  ages  of  eight 
and  fourteen.  In  this  way,  by  a  vigorous  en- 
forcement of  the  law,  illiteracy  among  the 
children  is  a  practical  impossibility  in  Massa- 
chusetts. Here,  too,  it  may  be  remarked, 
the  old  Commonwealth  marches  at  the  head 
of  the  column,  providing  and  compelling 
nearly  twice  the  amount  of  education  that  is 
given  on  the  average  in  the  other  states  of  the 
nation. 

Moreover,  every  pupil  of  the  public  schools 
has  the  requisite  text-books  ready  to  his  hand. 
The  committee  select  and  prescribe  the  books 
according  to  their  best  judgment  of  intrinsic 
merit,  without  reference  to  the  costliness  or 
cheapness  of  the  book,  and  no  child  is  com- 
pelled to  remain  at  home,  or  enter  the  class 
unprepared,  because  of  the  parents'  inability 


PUBLIC  EDUCATION  217 

to  purchase  the  book  at  the  very  moment  it  is 
needed.  The  books  are  provided  at  the  pub- 
lic expense,  and  like  the  teacher's  salary,  the 
fuel,  the  chalk,  the  janitor's  service,  this  ex- 
pense enters  into  the  annual  appropriation, and 
must  be  met  by  the  taxation  of  the  people. 

At  first  glance  one  might  be  inclined  to 
think  that  legislation  could  go  no  further. 
And  yet  there  are  upon  the  statute-book  requi- 
sitions far  more  radical  than  these.  I/et  me 
cite  one  or  two. 

In  the  first  place  the  abolition  of  the  school 
districts.  For  some  reason  the  principle  of 
democracy,  involving  local  autonomy,  got  its 
most  extreme  development  in  dealing  with  the 
schools.  Not  only  did  it  rest  with  the  towns 
to  provide  school  houses  and  schooling,  but 
the  towns  were  divided  into  districts  for  school 
purposes,  and  the  responsibility  was  handed 
over  entire  to  the  districts.  They  acquired 
corporate  rights  for  these  purposes.  They 
built  the  school  houses,  by  special  tax,  they 
prescribed  the  text-books,  hired  the  teachers 
and  determined  the  length  of  the  school  pe- 
riods. This  was,  indeed,  one  of  the  most  in- 
surmountable obstacles  encountered  by  Mr. 
Mann  in  his  efforts  to  rouse  the  people  and 
to  secure  a  more  efficient  system  of  school 


2l8  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

organization  and  management.  Yet  any 
effort  to  change  this  condition  was  met 
with  the  fiercest  opposition.  It  was  only 
after  prolonged  agitation  covering  many  de- 
cades attended  by  repeated  attempts  in  the 
Legislature,  that  the  law  was  finally  enacted 
which  abolished  the  districts  and  placed  the  re- 
sponsibility for  the  schools  back  again  where 
it  belonged  originally,  with  the  towns,  and 
gave  to  the  school  committees  the  power  to 
appoint,  as  well  as  certificate  the  teachers, 
and  to  organize  the  schools  and  assemble  the 
pupils  without  reference  to  neighborhood  lines. 
Certainly  no  legislation  has  ever  been  at- 
tempted more  radical  than  this,  unless  it  be 
the  legislation  for  compulsory  supervision. 

Then,  too,  that  expert  oversight  is  desirable 
and  profitable  is  implied  in  the  selection  of 
school  committees.  From  the  earliest  times  it 
has  been  customary  in  most  towns  to  place  upon 
the  school  committee  the  men  'supposed  to  be 
the  best  qualified  to  deal  with  educational  mat- 
ters. The  clergymen  of  the  different  denomina- 
tions, the  local  physicians,  the  country  squires 
and  retired  school-masters,  were  the  persons 
from  whom,  generally,  choice  was  made  for  this 
service.  They  were  expected  not  only  to  ex- 
amine the  teachers  and  decide  upon  their  fit- 


PUBLIC   EDUCATION  219 

ness  to  teach,  but  to  visit  the  schools,  advise 
with  the  teachers,  exhort  the  scholars  and 
make  a  report  to  the  town  of  the  condition 
and  work  of  the  schools.  It  is  but  fair  to  say 
that  a  great  deal  of  valuable  service  was  ren- 
dered, in  many  instances,  even  where  the 
authority  was  vague  and  indefinite.  To  pass 
from  that  kind  of  oversight  to  expert  super- 
vision was  only  a  step.  No  argiiment  was 
needed  to  convince  men  of  the  value  of  expe- 
rience in  teaching  and  training  in  school 
management  for  work  of  this  character.  From 
the  first  the  idea  has  met  with  favor.  After 
the  first  trial  in  a  few  of  the  larger  communi- 
ties the  practice  became  very  general  in  the 
cities  and  more  populous  towns  of  the  state. 
Then  came  legislation  permitting  towns  to 
form  districts  for  the  purpose  of  supervision 
and  the  granting  of  aid  from  the  state  to 
render  such  supervision  possible,  and  now  we 
have  the  matter  made  compulsory  for  all  the 
towns.  In  one  aspect  it  is  an  interference 
with  local  management,  a  stretching  forth  of 
the  hand  of  the  state  to  regulate  the  relation 
of  the  municipalities  in  their  most  vital  con- 
cerns. But  the  good  to  be  accomplished  by 
it  is  of  such  transcendent  importance  that  no 
serious  objection  has  yet  been  raised  against  it. 


220  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

I  ought  not  to  conclude  this  survey  without 
some  reference  to  the  instrumentalities  which 
the  Commonwealth  has  provided.  Among 
these  I  know  of  none  more  beneficent  than 
the  evening  school.  In  a  community  like 
ours,  made  up  not  only  of  individuals  who 
have  been  born  and  raised  within  our  borders, 
but  of  many  who  have  come  hither  from  for- 
eign parts,  there  must  be  not  a  few  who  have 
passed  the  limit  of  the  school  age  without  en- 
joying in  full  measure  the  privileges  which 
Massachusetts  accords  to  all  her  children. 
Yet  their  education  is  important  not  only  to 
themselves,  but  to  the  state  whose  citizens 
they  are  to  be.  Herein  is  the  reason  for  some 
device  which  may  afford  them,  though  in  a 
partial  and  incomplete  way,  the  training  they 
have  missed.  The  legislation  requiring  the 
establishment  of  evening  schools  in  towns  and 
cities  of  ten  thousand  inhabitants  and  over 
came  in  response  to  this  recognized  necessity. 

Nor  does  our  legislation  rest  here.  We 
must  not  regard  this  as  evidence  that  our  gov- 
ernors believe  that  the  mere  rudiments  of 
learning  only  are  essential  to  good  citizenship. 
The  fact  that  this  law  has  been  followed  by 
an  act  requiring  that  cities  of  fifty  thousand 
inhabitants  and  upwards  shall  establish  and 


PUBLIC    EDUCATION  221 

maintain  evening  high  schools  clearly  testifies 
to  the  conviction  that  education  of  the  higher 
order  is  valuable  to  the  state.  It  sets  forth 
the  purpose  of  the  Commonwealth  that  those 
who  have  been  compelled  for  any  reason  to 
abandon  their  formal  training  at  the  end  of 
the  grammar  school  period  shall  have  the 
opportunity  to  go  forward,  keeping  step  in 
some  measure  with  their  more  fortunate  com- 
rades. The  state  recognizes  the  value  of  the 
broadest  possible  training,  and  she  does  not 
mean  to  be  deprived  of  the  advantage  it  con-, 
fers  upon  the  children  of  the  poorest  of  her 
people. 

Moreover,  during  the  past  thirty  years  and 
more,  the  public  has  been  advancing  towards 
the  belief  that  no  well  rounded  system  of  edu- 
cation can  overlook  either  the  industrial  or  the 
artistic  side  of  life.  The  human  mind  does 
not  utter  itself  only,  or  wholly,  by  the  instru- 
mentality of  speech.  There  have  been  great 
epochs  of  human  progress  in  which  the  genius 
of  the  people  has  impressed  itself  upon  the 
world  through  works  of  the  highest  artistic 
conception  and  form.  Egypt  speaks  to  us 
to-day  from  the  graves  of  her  forgotten  history 
through  the  marvellous  creations  of  her  tem- 
ples and  mausoleums ;  even  the  Napoleonic 


222  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

regime  of  France  proclaims  its  glory  chiefly 
through  the  Barbizon  school  of  painters ;  while 
Greece  remains  to  us  the  type  of  the  highest 
civilization  the  world  has  yet  seen,  because 
she  gave  to  us  both  letters  and  art  in  blended 
and  harmonious  perfection.  Slowly  and  dimly, 
to  be  sure,  the  people  of  Massachusetts  have 
been  coming  to  perceive  this  phase  of  educa- 
tion. To  this  we  must  attribute  the  provision 
that  has  been  made  first  for  industrial  and 
mechanical  drawing,  culminating  in  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  Normal  Art  School,  then 
for  the  elementary  use  of  tools,  and  finally  for 
manual  training.  The  state  has  not  entered 
upon  the  business  of  teaching  trades.  But 
she  is  preparing  her  children  for  the  new  in- 
dustrial activity  in  which  their  lives  are  to  be 
passed ;  and  she  hopes  that  they  may  be 
endowed  with  the  artistic  sense  that  will  en- 
able them  to  contribute,  not  only  to  the 
strength,  but  to  the  beauty  of  ottr  civilization. 
But  the  crowning  instrumentality  to  which 
the  Commonwealth  has  given  its  sanction  is 
the  high  school.  Indeed,  it  was  this,  though 
called  a  grammar  school,  that  first  received 
legislative  attention.  This  is  the  fountain 
out  of  which  our  free  public  education  has 
sprung.  The  original  intention  was  to  give 


PUBLIC   EDUCATION  223 

the  necessary  instruction  in  Latin  and  Greek 
to  prepare  pupils  for  the  university.  The 
people,  however,  who  have  furnished  the 
money  for  the  maintenance  of  the  high  school 
have  not  been  content  that  it  should  occupy 
so  restricted  a  field.  A  greater  breadth  and 
variety  have  been  given  to  its  courses  from 
time  to  time  until  it  has  come  to  be  itself  a 
great  popular  university.  It  is  fitted  up,  in 
our  cities  and  larger  towns,  with  a  palatial 
magnificence  which  only  the  richest  univer- 
sities can  approach.  It  is  provided  with  labo- 
ratories, recitation  and  lecture  rooms,  and 
with  library  facilities  which  very  few  colleges 
in  the  land  could  command  forty  years  ago. 
The  development  of  the  last  fifty  years  is 
something  marvellous.  But  for  the  statistics, 
one  even  who  has  witnessed  the  process  with 
his  own  eyes  could  scarcely  credit  it.  In  1852 
there  were  but  sixty-four  high  schools  in  the 
Commonwealth .  To-day  there  are  two  hundred 
and  sixty-two.  These  afford  instruction  to 
forty  thousand  pupils, of  whom  thirty  thousand 
are  in  schools  whose  average  membership  is 
two  hundred  and  upwards.  The  high  school  as 
it  is  thus  equipped  and  organized  has  wrought 
a  complete  modification,  not  to  say  transforma- 
tion, in  our  system  of  education,  public  and  pri- 


224  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

vate,  inferior  and  superior.  For  in  the  lower 
grades  the  inspiration  and  spur  to  activity  and 
achievement  come  from  the  high  school,  while 
it  is  no  longer  the  exclusive  privilege  of  the 
college  to  prescribe  the  curriculum  and  set  the 
pace  for  the  high  school,  but  it  is  beginning 
to  look  longingly  towards  it  and  to  consider 
how  it  can  shape  its  own  courses  to  meet  the 
ever  broadening  and  varying  programmes  so 
as  to  give  a  liberal  training  to  every  aspiring 
youth  who  has  been  substantially  prepared. 
Thus  the  high  school  has  become  the  final 
avenue  of  approach  for  every  phase  of  educa- 
tion to  which  the  Commonwealth  has  lent  its 
sanction,  opening  outward  towards  the  world 
and  upward  towards  the  university. 

It  only  remains  for  me  to  say  that  a  careful 
survey  of  the  century  will  convince  any  un- 
prejudiced observer,  not  only  that  the  Com- 
monwealth has  made  vast  achievements  in  the 
educational  field,  but  that  she  has  been  carry- 
ing forward  an  equalizing  process  designed  to 
place  the  highest  benefits  of  learning  within 
the  reach  of  rich  and  poor  alike.  The  impulse 
of  the  educational  movement  has  touched  all 
classes.  While  the  people  in  the  more  fortu- 
nate sections  have  been  pushing  forward  for 
the  best  results  in  both  the  instruments  and 


PUBI/EC   EDUCATION  225 

substance  of  learning,  those  in  the  less  fortu- 
nate portions  of  the  community  have  been 
moved,  if  possible,  by  a  fiercer  ardor  not  to  be 
left  behind  in  the  race  for  a  true  ideal  and  a 
perfect  method.  The  aim  has  been  to  reach 
a  uniform  standard  of  excellence.  Still,  there 
are  great  differences ;  and  these  differences 
must  continue  under  existing  conditions.  So 
long  as  the  responsibility  for  furnishing  edu- 
cational facilities  rests  with  each  particular 
municipality,  it  will  follow  that  the  poorer  and 
less  enlightened  towns  will,  as  a  rule,  provide 
only  inferior  and  ordinary  schools. 

Here,  then,  is  the  point  for  a  great  reform. 
Here  is  the  work  marked  out  for  the  educa- 
tional leaders  of  the  next  century.  To  me  it 
seems  that  the  duty  of  the  state  is  not  dis- 
charged until  all  the  children  have  an  equal 
privilege.  In  a  great  city  like  Boston  the 
children  of  the  poorer  sections  have  as  good 
teachers  as  the  children  of  the  rich  and  fash- 
ionable quarters.  The  North  Knd  and  the 
West  End  are  on  the  same  plane ;  Charles- 
town  and  East  Boston,  South  Boston  and 
Dorchester  are  treated  as  nearly  alike  as  pos- 
sible. Why  should  not  this  principle  extend 
to  the  entire  Commonwealth  ?  Some  one  will 
say,  ' '  Because  that  would  be  interfering  with 


226  OCCASIONAL    ADDRESSES 

the  principle  of  local  self-government."  But 
that  argument  was  exploded  when  the  district 
system  was  abolished.  The  taxable  property 
of  the  state  would  undoubtedly  object.  It 
always  objects  when  it  is  called  upon  to  meet 
a  new  expenditure  for  the  public  good.  But 
there  is  no  reason  why  the  property  of  the 
state,  which  receives  the  highest  benefits 
from  the  education  of  the  people,  should  not 
contribute  as  far  as  possible  to  make  it  equal 
to  all,  precisely  as  for  similar  reasons  within 
the  range  of  the  benefits  received  it  con- 
tributes for  state  highways,  parks,  sewerage 
and  water- works.  Our  educational  leaders 
and  legislators  must  look  this  question  in  the 
face,  and  when  they  shall  consent  to  give  it 
careful  and  profound  study,  they  will  see  to  it 
that  Berkshire  and  Hampshire  shall  not  be 
separated  by  a  great  gulf  from  Middlesex  and 
Suffolk. 


WELCOME  TO  JOHN  D.  U)NG 


ADDRESS    BEFORE    THE     MASSACHUSETTS 
CI/QB,  MAY  10,   1902 


Gentlemen  of  the  Massachusetts  Club: 

I  count  it  both  a  distinction  and  a  privilege 
to  stand  in  this  place  and  give  voice  to  your 
welcome  to  our  almost,  if  not  altogether,  most 
distinguished  fellow  member  on  his  return 
from  a  great  career  in  the  public  service  to 
private  life  in  our  good  old  Commonwealth. 
I  have  only  one  regret,  and  that  I  am  sure 
you  all  share  with  me,  that  the  honored  and 
beloved  President  of  this  Club,  Ex-Gov- 
ernor Claflin,  is  prevented  by  the  infirmities 
of  age  from  being  here  to  give  this  welcome 
in  person,  which  he  would  do  with  so  much 
grace  and  with  such  genuine,  heartfelt  sin- 
cerity. If  it  were  not  an  arraignment  of  the 
ways  of  Divine  Providence  I  might  also  wish 
that  Alanson  Beard,  that  stalwart  son  of  the 
Green  Mountain  State,  were  here  to  extend  his 
strong  right  hand  to  this  equally  stalwart  son 
of  the  Pine  Tree  State.  These  two  men 
aside,  who  more  than  any  others  embody  in 
our  thoughts  the  ideals  for  which  this  Club 


228  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

stands,  I  am  glad  that  the  lot  has  fallen  to 
me.  Not  that  I  would  assume  to  put  myself  in 
the  same  category  with  them  or  even  to  stand 
before  many  other  older  and  more  distin- 
guished members.  For  my  own  sake,  how- 
ever, I  am  glad  to  have  this  privilege. 

I  recall,  doubtless  many  of  you  have  done 
the  same,  the  meeting  which  we  held 
five  years  ago,  it  seems  but  yesterday,  in  this 
very  room,  to  bid  godspeed  to  our  friend 
who  was  just  then  going  to  assume  the  duties 
of  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  We  were  glad 
that  he  had  been  called  to  that  high  office. 
We  were  glad  that  he  was  to  represent  this 
Commonwealth  and  the  Massachusetts  Club  in 
the  Cabinet  of  President  McKinley.  There 
were  those,  to  be  sure,  who  could  not  suppress 
their  astonishment  that  Governor  I^ong  should 
be  willing  to  accept  the  portfolio  of  the  Navy. 
Surely,  there  were  no  new  laurels  to  be  won 
there.  The  United  States  was  at  peace  with 
all  the  world,  and  in  its  magnificent  isolation 
here  between  the  two  oceans  it  was  not  pos- 
sible that  it  could  ever  come  into  warlike 
relations  with  any  foreign  power.  The  Navy, 
what  was  it  but  a  superfluous  limb  of  the 
National  Government  ?  At  the  very  best  it 
was  only  a  plaything,  and  a  very  costly  play- 


TO   JOHN    D.    I.ONG  22Q 

thing,  whose  chief  utility  was  to  furnish 
delightful  outings  in  many  seas,  to  a  select 
class  of  men,  educated  at  the  government  ex- 
pense, who  were  thus  enabled  to  take  part  in 
stately  functions  which  authorities  in  foreign 
ports  devised  for  them  because  they  bore  the 
nation's  flag.  Still,  the  most  of  us  were  glad 
that  Governor  I/ong  had  been  selected,  if  only 
that  he  might  have  part  in  the  rehabilitation 
of  the  Navy  which  had  been  already  so  aus- 
piciously begun.  We  knew  that  with  him  in 
charge  the  work  would  be  done  thoroughly, 
honestly  and  with  due  regard  to  the  dignity 
and  power  of  the  nation. 

We  did  not  then  know,  no  human  foresight 
had  been  able  to  perceive,  that  we  were 
standing  on  the  very  verge  of  a  great  and 
brilliant  epoch,  as  momentous  and  memorable, 
almost,  as  any  in  the  history  of  the  Republic. 
We  had  not  seen,  the  wisest  of  our  statesmen 
could  not  discern,  the  small  cloud,  no  bigger 
than  a  man's  hand,  that  was  then  gathering 
and  would  soon  overspread  the  entire  political 
horizon.  We  could  not  understand  that  the 
muse  of  history  had  already,  to  use  a  figure 
of  Wendell  Phillips,  '  'dipped  her  pen  in  the 
rainbow"  that  she  might  write  high  up  on 
the  scroll  of  the  nation's  heroes  the  names  of 


230  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

Sampson  and  Dewey  beside  the  names  of 
Porter  and  Farragut.  If  we  had  known  all 
that,  we  should  have  been  gladder  than  we 
were.  But  when  the  crisis  came,  when 
the  storm  burst,  we  felt  an  infinite  satis- 
faction that  our  friend's  hand  was  on  the 
helm.  Mayor  Collins  the  other  night  at  the 
banquet  to  Prince  Henry  of  Prussia  face- 
tiously alluded  to  him  as  "that  old  salt,"  John 
D .  Long .  I  do  not  know  how  much  exp  er ience 
Governor  Long  has  had  with  salt  water, 
whether  he  has  done  more  than  sail  up  from 
Hingham  in  a  summer  boat  on  a  summer  sea, 
but  inasmuch  as  he  has  put  his  hand  upon 
the  helm  of  the  American  Navy  and  guided  it 
through  a  mighty  storm  and  fearful  tempest 
until  it  has  come  out  under  clear  skies  and 
into  calm  waters,  he  is  entitled  to  be  called  a 
skilful  pilot,  if  not,  indeed,  our  Lord  High 
Admiral. 

I  recall  at  this  moment,  you  must  all  remem- 
ber it,  another  great  meeting  in  yonder  room, 
when  Alanson  Beard  sat  at  the  head  of  the 
table,  flanked  on  either  side  by  a  distinguished 
rear  admiral  and  surrounded  by  men  who 
had  won  renown  for  the  state  alike  in  peace 
and  war,  and  we  were  rejoicing  over  the 
glorious  news  then  coming  over  the  wires,  of 


TO   JOHN    D.    LONG  231 

Dewey's  matchless  victory  in  Manila  Bay. 
The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  had  sent  an  order 
to  Commodore  Dewey  to  find  the  Spanish 
fleet  in  the  orient  and  destroy  it.  I^ike  the 
brave  and  faithful  officer  he  is,  he  had  obeyed 
the  order.  Neither  he  nor  the  Secretary,  I 
suspect,  had  given  much  thought  to  the  con- 
sequences which  the  execution  of  that  order 
would  carry  with  it.  But  we  who  sat  around 
the  tables  on  that  memorable  day  knew  that 
as  a  result  of  that  victory  we  had  an  empire 
on  our  hands  and  that  we  were  about  to  be 
confronted  with  problems  for  the  solution  of 
which  there  were  no  precedents  in  the  experi- 
ence of  the  Republic.  We  knew,  too,  that  this 
Navy  which  some  had  thought  a  useless  play- 
thing, had  made  a  demonstration  that,  ship 
for  ship  and  man  for  man,  it  was  the  equal, 
and  more  than  the  equal,  of  any  navy  afloat. 
Above  all,  we  knew  that  the  United  States  of 
America  had  come  forth  from  her  splendid  iso- 
lation and  was  henceforth  to  stand  on  the 
great  carpet  of  international  politics  and  have 
her  full  share  in  all  the  great  movements  by 
which  the  civilization  and  progress  of  hu- 
manity are  to  be  secured.  In  all  these  events 
which  have  meant  so  much  for  the  expansion 
and  glory  of  the  American  nation,  no  man, 


232  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

unless  it  be  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  the  lamented  McKinley  himself,  has 
borne  a  more  conspicuous  part  than  our  hon- 
ored guest.  It  would  be  impossible  to  write 
the  history  of  the  United  States  during  the 
last  five  years  without  writing  the  biography 
of  John  D.  lyong. 

Some  two  years  ago  the  Congregationalists 
held  a  great  international  council  in  Boston. 
A  prominent  layman  of  that  body  gave  a 
complimentary  banquet  to  the  foreign  dele- 
gates at  the  Algonquin  Club  House.  He  paid 
me  the  honor  of  an  invitation  to  that  banquet. 
I  had  my  seat  at  the  table  beside  a  learned 
delegate  from  Australia,  the  head  of  an  insti- 
tution of  learning  in  that  far  off  island  em- 
pire, who  was  making  his  first  visit  to 
this  country.  He  had  just  come  by  leisurely 
stages  from  the  Pacific  coast  to  Boston.  He 
had  taken  time  to  receive  a  full  and  strong 
impression  of  the  magnitude,  wealth,  pros- 
perity and  power  of  this  great  nation,  and  he 
was  so  penetrated  with  the  sense  of  it  that  he 
could  talk  of  nothing  else.  "Ah!"  said  he, 
* '  John  made  his  greatest  mistake  when  he 
let  Jonathan  go."  I  have  thought  of  that 
remark  many  times  and  wondered  whether 
any  mistake  was  made.  George  III  and  his 


TO  JOHN   D.    I,ONG  233 

ministers  regarded  the  American  Colonies  with 
hatred  and  contempt.  Great  Britain  for  more 
than  a  hundred  years  cherished  the  same 
feeling  towards  the  people  whom  they  had 
cast  aside.  When  the  war  of  the  Rebellion 
broke  out  the  walls  of  the  Parliament  House 
echoed  to  the  joyful  cry,  "The  great  repub- 
lican bubble  has  burst ! ' ' 

But  now  a  mighty  change  has  come  over 
the  spirit  of  Britain's  dreams.  She  is  now 
the  isolated  nation.  Her  hand  is  against 
every  man  and  every  man's  hand  is  against 
her.  There  is  not  a  nation  in  continental 
Kurope  that  would  not  rend  her  in  pieces, 
if  it  dared.  Sometimes  it  looks  as  if  all  the 
nations  of  continental  Kurope  would  com- 
bine and  rend  her  in  pieces,  if  they  dared. 

If  such  a  contingency  should  ever  arise, 
where  would  Jonathan  stand  ?  Would  he 
not  take  his  place  beside  his  father  John  ? 
Joseph,  the  great  Hebrew  sage,  said  to  his 
brethren,  ' ( As  for  you— ye  thought  evil 
against  me,  but  God  meant  it  unto  good  to  save 
much  people  alive."  So  in  a  great  interna- 
tional crisis  America  would  stand  with  Kng- 
land,  to  save  much  people  alive ;  to  save 
what  is  infinitely  more  precious  even  than 
men's  lives,  the  principles  that  were  planted 


254  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

at  Runnymede,  that  had  their  gorgeous 
flowering  at  Plymouth  and  whose  fruits  we 
are  gathering  in  such  rich  abundance  today. 
For  this  new  attitude  of  the  Republic  we  are 
in  no  small  measure  indebted  to  the  good 
sense,  wisdom  and  patriotism  of  the  man  for 
whom  this  welcome  is  meant. 

We  are  truly  glad  to  have  him  amongst  us 
once  more.  It  will  be  a  real  comfort  to  see 
him  climbing  again  the  court  house  hill  with 
his  green  bag  under  his  arm.  While  such 
men,  representing  the  noblest  traditions  of 
the  American  bar,  practice  law  in  our  courts, 
we  feel  a  sense  of  added  security  and  know 
that  the  law  will  be  preserved  as  the  noblest 
instrument  of  liberty  and  justice  among  men. 
We  are  glad  to  have  him  in  our  gatherings  of 
citizens  for  various  objects,  meeting  every 
one  with  that  democratic  simplicity  which  is 
characteristic  of  him.  He  is  a  transcendent 
type  of  American  manhood,  and  we  are 
thrilled  with  a  new  pride  in  our  citizenship 
when  we  look  upon  him.  We  are  glad  to  re- 
ceive him  again  at  our  table. 

There  is  only  one  regret  about  it  and  that 
touches  what  I  can  scarcely  help  feeling  is  a 
weak  spot  in  our  republican  institutions. 
When  a  man  has  given  evidence  of  a  great 


WELCOME  TO  JOHN   D.    IX>NG  255 

natural  aptitude  for  public  affairs,  and  when 
that  aptitude  has  been  increased  and  strength- 
ened by  thorough  training  and  wide  experi- 
ence, it  is  a  pity  that  he  should  be  relegated 
to  private  life,  and  that  hands,  unproved  and 
with  less  experience,  should  take  up  the  bur- 
den. There  ought  be  be  some  way  devised 
by  which  men  who  have  given  demonstration 
of  fearless  and  incorruptible  integrity,  of 
transcendent  ability  and  highest  patriotism, 
might  remain  in  the  service  of  the  state  so 
long  as  they  live.  Nevertheless  we  welcome 
him.  You  who  sit  around  these  tables  will 
bear  witness,  that,  however  warm  the  greet- 
ing may  be  that  he  will  receive  in  other  parts 
of  the  old  Bay  State  or  of  the  country  at 
large,  nowhere  can  he  command  a  warmer 
and  more  cordial  greeting  than  we  give  him 
in  this  old  Massachusetts  Club.  Gentlemen, 
I  have  the  honor  of  presenting  to  you  our  fel- 
low-member, John  Davis  Long. 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  UNIVERSALIST  CLUB 


CELEBRATING  THE  ATTAINMENT  OE  80  YEARS  BY 

THE  REV.  C.  H.  LEONARD,  D.D., 

Nov.  10,  1902. 


Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Club  : 

I  am  glad  of  the  privilege  of  taking  part  in 
the  exercises  of  this  evening  in  honor  of  the 
attainment  of  eighty  years  by  Dean  Leonard. 
You  have  limited  me,  sir,  in  your  invitation 
to  from  seven  to  ten  minutes.  I  should  need 
two  or  three  times  that  number  of  minutes  in 
which  to  speak  fittingly  of  my  personal  rela- 
tions to  the  Dean,  and  when  it  comes  to  a 
consideration  of  his  official  relations  to  the 
College  and  the  Divinity  School  I  could  use 
the  entire  time  of  this  evening  and  not  begin 
to  say  all  that  might  be  said  properly  on  so 
large  a  subject.  There  are  three  or  four  things 
that  I  must  try  to  mention  without  transcend- 
ing the  limits  of  time  allotted  to  me. 

I  have  enjoyed  an  intimate  friendship  with 
our  honored  guest  for  nearly  forty  years. 
There  are  few  men,  either  among  the  living 
or  the  dead,  for  whom  I  have  a  warmer  regard 


REV.    C.    H.    IvEONARD  237 

or  to  whom  I  am  under  greater  obligations 
for  favors  received.  When  I  entered  the 
ministry  in  1865  I  was  without  special  theo- 
logical preparation.  I  needed  counsel  and 
help  in  the  difficulties  that  confronted  me,  and 
I  received  them  in  fullest  measure  from  Mr. 
Leonard.  The  homiletical  suggestions  which 
he  gave  me  were  of  incalculable  value.  I 
feel  to-day  that  I  am  profoundly  indebted  to 
him  for  whatever  success  I  have  achieved  as 
a  preacher.  I  presume  that  there  are  at 
least  a  score  of  men  who  began  their  minis- 
terial work  while  Charles  Leonard  was  in 
Chelsea,  who  would  gladly  give  the  same 
testimony.  Indeed,  I  suppose  that  Starr 
King,  if  he  were  alive,  would  bear  confirming 
witness  to  the  value  of  his  homiletical  advice, 
long  before  he  became  a  Professor  of  Homi- 
letics. 

If  we  turn  to  the  Church  at  large  I  think 
it  would  be  just  to  say  that  Charles  Leonard 
was  the  real  leader  in  what  may  be  called  the 
new  Universalism.  His  place  as  a  parish 
minister  was  in  the  transition  period  between 
the  controversial  methods  of  the  fathers  and 
the  more  positive  constructive  work  of  the 
later  time.  Everybody  knew  what  this  quiet, 


238  OCCASIONAL  ADDRESSES 

modest  man,  without  any  flourish  of  trumpets, 
was  doing  over  there  in  Chelsea ;  that  he  was 
preaching  the  old  doctrine  in  a  new  way ; 
that  he  was  organizing  his  church  in  a  com- 
pact and  orderly  fashion  and  introducing  an 
element  of  spirituality  almost  unknown  be- 
fore ;  that  he  was  creating  institutions  that 
were  to  be  permanent  and  universal.  You 
have  all  heard  of  the  wonderful  Sunday 
school  which  he  gathered  and  organized,  of 
which  Mr.  Kndicott,  who  has  just  spoken,  was 
a  member.  He  introduced  a  more  orderly 
and  spiritual  form  of  worship.  He  originated 
the  day  known  as  Children's  Sunday,  which 
was  adopted  by  all  the  congregations  of  our 
communion  and  which  has  overleaped  the 
barriers  of  this  denomination  and  been  taken 
up  by  most  of  the  Protestant  churches  of 
America.  It  is,  therefore,  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  he  was  a  real  leader  in  what  we 
now  accept  for  substance  of  doctrine,  and  in 
our  most  approved  methods  of  organization 
and  work. 

I  suppose,  however,  that  we  are  under  the 
greatest  obligation  to  him  for  what  he  has 
done  for  the  Divinity  School.  He  was  called 
to  Tufts  College  in  1869  to  co-operate  with  Dr. 


REV.    C.    H.    LEONARD  239 

Sawyer  in  the  beginning  of  this  enterprise. 
Dr.  Sawyer  was  the  logical,  one  might  almost 
say,  the  necessary  head  of  the  work  that  was 
to  be  done.  He  was  the  ripest,  the  broadest 
and  the  most  exact  scholar  that  the  Univer- 
salist  Church,  up  to  that  time,  had  produced. 
He  was  a  great  man,  the  greatest  perhaps 
that  the  denomination  has  had  and  one 
of  the  greatest  that  any  church  in  this  coun- 
try has  given  to  the  world  during  the  nine- 
teenth century.  But  notwithstanding  his 
greatness,  there  were  some  things  for  which 
he  had  neither  faculty  nor  taste.  He  was  not 
an  administrator ;  he  was  not  a  disciplinarian, 
and  he  had  little  interest  in  or  ability  for  or- 
ganization and  executive  work.  He  was 
contented,  therefore,  to  turn  all  these  things 
over  to  his  associate.  Accordingly  the  organ- 
ization of  the  Divinity  School  as  we  have  it  to- 
day is  mainly  the  fruit  of  Professor  Leonard's 
efforts.  Its  curriculum  of  study  is  largely  of 
his  devising  and  the  discipline  of  students, 
from  the  inception  of  the  undertaking  until  the 
present  moment,  has  been  almost  wholly  in  his 
hands.  Naturally,  on  the  relinquishment  of  the 
Deanship  by  Dr.  Sawyer,  he  was  promoted  to 
the  office  and  became  in  name  as  well  as  in  fact 


240  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

the  executive  officer  of  the  School.  It  may 
be  said  justly  that  the  Divinity  School  as  a 
concrete  thing,  and  the  product  of  the  Divin- 
ity School  in  those  who  have  gone  forth  from 
it  and  who  are  now  for  the  most  part  engaged 
in  the  ministry,  all  bear  the  strong  stamp,  the 
sign  manual  of  Dean  Leonard. 

Of  his  official  relations  to  me  as  the  head 
of  the  College  I  cannot  begin  to  say  what  I 
could  wish  I  might  be  permitted  to  put  in  the 
form  of  words.  When  I  came  to  my  present 
position  I  was  a  very  young  man,  wholly  with- 
out training  or  experience  in  the  kind  of 
duties  to  which  I  was  compelled  to  give  at- 
tention at  once.  Professor  Leonard  was  an 
older  man  and  more  experienced  teacher. 
He  might  have  been  pardoned  if  he  had 
looked  upon  me  with  suspicion,  if  he  had 
waited  for  me  to  make  demonstration  of  my 
capacity.  But  he  did  not.  His  cordiality 
was  open-armed  from  the  start,  and  it  has 
been  maintained  without  impairment  through- 
out. There  has  never  been  one  moment  of 
friction  or  of  strained  relations  between  us. 
There  has  never  been  a  word  of  difference ; 
so  far  as  I  know,  he  has  never  entertained  a 
different  opinion  on  matters  of  administration 


REV.    C.    H.    I,EONARD  241 

and  policy  from  me.  Sometimes  I  imagine 
I  must  have  startled  him  by  radical  sugges- 
tions, as,  for  example,  in  this  new  proposal 
for  the  reorganization  of  the  work  of  the  Di- 
vinity School ,  with  reference  to  the  College  of 
Letters,  with  the  view  of  making  all  divinity 
students  candidates  for  the  degree  of  bachelor 
of  arts  before  becoming  candidates  for  the 
degree  of  bachelor  of  divinity.  But  what- 
ever may  have  been  his  inmost  feeling,  he  has 
always  taken  an  attitude  of  hospitality  and 
been  ready  to  test  every  proposed  departure 
from  the  beaten  way  by  actual  trial. 

In  conclusion  let  me  say  that  I  have  been 
a  very  close  observer  of  his  going  and  coming 
for  many  years.  I  have  never  known  him  to 
be  in  better  physical  condition  than  he  is  now. 
It  does  not  seem  possible  that  he  is  four  score 
years  old.  Why,  I  believe  he  could  run  a 
mile  today  as  quickly  as  he  could  twenty 
years  ago.  Mentally  his  faculties  were  never 
more  alert.  He  not  only  knows  the  subject 
which  it  is  his  business  as  a  teacher  and  ad- 
ministrator to  know,  but  he  is  in  close  touch 
with  all  the  movements  of  our  time.  His  eye 
is  unclouded  and  his  mind  shines  as  the  sun. 
It  is  not  only  a  wish  that  I  express  in  com- 


242  OCCASIONAL   ADDRESSES 

mon  with  others  here  tonight  that  he  may 
long  continue  to  live  and  work  in  his  chosen 
sphere ;  it  is  a  confident  belief  that  he  has 
yet  many  years  of  happiness  and  usefulness 
in  store  for  him.  His  life  has  been  built  into 
the  Church  of  our  love  and  into  the  noblest 
institutions  of  that  Church.  May  he  long  re- 
main among  us  to  enjoy  the  glory  of  it.  Here's 
to  his  good  health  !  May  he  live  long  and 
prosper  ! 


YB  05667 


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